


Someone Else's Dreams

by SpookySad



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Anxiety, Bisexual!Josh, Denny's, Depression, Drama, Dream Violence, Dreams, Dreamsharing, Excessive Breakfast Foods, Gun Violence, Guns, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Mentions of Christianity, Metaphors, Not that IHob bullshit, OC's - Freeform, Panromantic!Tyler, Self-Esteem Issues, Slow Burn, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, Symbolism, Triggers, asexual!tyler, misuse of prescription drugs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2018-07-22 15:23:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 33
Words: 147,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7444231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpookySad/pseuds/SpookySad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Josh has a great life, but that doesn't mean he's happy. He spends all his time working at Guitar Center, being a loner at school, and pining for the unattainable Tyler Joseph who probably doesn't even know Josh exists.<br/>Except that, unbeknownst to either of them, they've started sharing dreams.</p><p>Get the tissues. We're going to face our issues.</p><p>(Work in progress)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Worst Hostage, Like, Ever

Tyler is, like, the worst hostage ever. The only thing that’s kept him alive this long is that there are so many other hostages marching the same long trek which means that his captors are spread too thin to pay him much more attention than it takes to cuff him upside his head and move along. He’s not naïve enough to believe that he’ll be spared forever though; yesterday, he watched the men in hazmat suits and gasmasks beat and shoot a girl who wandered too far from the marching path. Tyler had wanted to shout out, to step in, to do _something_ to help her—but his voice had caught in his throat and in the end he had turned away.

 _Coward,_ that voice in the back of his head whispered, that voice with the name he wouldn’t even _think_ lest he summon its presence.

It isn’t Tyler’s fault that he’s a bad hostage. You’d think that marching through the dry wasteland would be boring, but it seems like there’s always something to see.

Mostly, he’s looking out east. Every other direction is the endless barren landscape, brown compact dirt that hurts his feet through his thin-soled shoes. Thin-sole—thin _soul._ That’s nice, Tyler thinks, he’ll have to remember that one. He groans softly, rubbing at his forehead. He’s off topic again. The east. He was thinking of the east.

He glances right. Far in the distance is a smattering of green. Trees, he’d like to think. A cool place, with no sun and no sweat. When he squints, he sees that beyond the trees ( _within_ the trees, maybe?) is some structure that rises even above the high branches. Tyler can’t even imagine what that structure could be, but he wants to be there.

A Gasman hits him hard, above and just behind his left ear. Tyler has been slacking ever so slightly, drifting just barely off the path. He snaps his head forward even while his ears ring and eyes fill with tears from the stinging pain.

 _Come on,_ he tells himself, trying to keep his internal voice encouraging. _Come on, Tyler. You can do it. Just focus on walking, on blending in. It will keep you alive. You want to stay alive, right?_

Yeah. Yeah, totally. Like, _duh._

 _Who are you trying to convince?_ A voice whispers in his mind. He ignores it.

His eyes drift east, like a magnet to iron, like a moth to flame…

He catches just a glimpse of that smear of green-black in the distance before a thickly gloved hand tangles in his hair and turns his head forward. For a moment, the grip lingers. Tyler feels like the hand might as well have a fist around his heart for how hard it’s beating.

“Be careful,” a voice whispers, smothered. “They’re watching you.” It’s a Gasman. Tyler knows it.

“ _You’re_ watching me, you mean,” he says.

“Well, _yeah._ ” The hand disappears, but his heart doesn’t slow. His chest aches the way it does running suicide drills at basketball practice. He’s been marching for eleven nights in the hot sun and not once has a Gasman spoken to him. Tyler’s never even been given any indication that there are humans— _people_ —underneath the masks and suits and gloves and boots. For some reason, he’s all the more afraid of them now.

The Gasman speaks again: “Don’t attract any attention. Just keep walking a bit farther.”

Tyler nods furiously. A few minutes ago, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to live. Now, he’d sing a song and dance a jig if the Gasman forced him to, just to stay alive. He feels the presence of his captor shift as it comes to stand beside him. When Tyler glances out of the corner of his eye, his heart stutters.

This is not a Gasman. It’s a poor imitation. Standing next to him is a man—hardly a man, maybe a little older than Tyler, maybe younger, since it’s hard to tell with the faded white cloth that’s been pulled up over his mouth and nose. The hair on top of his head is as dark as Tyler’s, wild and curly, dripping with sweat. His eyes are almond shaped, dark, squinted against the sun—or is it with a smile? It’s hard to tell under the cloth.

“Just a few more steps. Then we’re gonna make a run for it. No matter what happens, don’t stop running. Can you run?”

“Yes,” Tyler breathes. He’s not on the basketball team for his _looks_ or something. “But where will we go?”

“East,” the not-Gasman answers. “Don’t be afraid. Are you ready?”

“Yes—”

“ _Go!_ ”

The two of them swerve right, hard. Ahead are the trees, that dark smear in the distance that he longs for the way he used to long for water, though he hadn’t found a drop of it in the wasteland. Tyler’s heart is in his throat. He’s exhilarated, air whirring in his ears. He can’t hear any noises from the Gasmen, not from the shuffling feet of the hostages marching farther into the desert. All he can hear are the sound of his shoes slapping against the dirt, and the same sound being mirrored in an off staccato beat somewhere nearby, somewhere behind, somewhere _falling_ behind.

He spares a glance over his shoulder. The not-Gasman is trailing behind. Tyler realizes that he’d been asked if _he_ could run, but that had given him no indication of the other male’s speed or lack of.

“Keep running!” The other one shouts. The cloth wrapped around his face presses against his features, giving Tyler an impression of a full mouth and a strong jaw. Tyler’s eyes drift farther back (there’s no need to watch where he’s going for a few moments since there’s nothing between him and the oasis), and he’s terrified to see that they both are being chased by the true Gasmen.

“Turn around and keep running! You have to keep going!”

They catch the not-Gasman first. Tyler hears the thud of metal on flesh. He turns away so he doesn’t have to look, squeezing his eyes shut. His steps stutter and he nearly falls. He forces his blurry eyes open so that he doesn’t trip over air. There are pops in the distance: gunshots.

They catch him next, cruel hands catching his shirt and pulling him to the dirt. His palms are scraped and his knees are bleeding and his eyes sting when they roll him over and he’s looking straight up into the sun until their alien faces block it out. Hot metal presses against his temple and he knows for sure now that he _does not want to die,_ but it’s too late, far too late, and the trigger is pulled.

Tyler jerks awake in his bed in Ohio. There’s a pressure at his temple, but it’s just his fucking _hand_ childishly curled into the familiar shape of a gun and its barrel. He’s sweating and breathing like he’s run a marathon. A glance at the clock says he has seven minutes before his alarm goes off for school. He curls the hand into a fist and presses it against his heaving chest.

“ _God,_ ” he pants into the quiet darkness of his room.

#

Across town, a not-Gasman wakes up in his own bed. The covers must have drifted up in the night to cover his mouth, and he feels like he’s being smothered. He pulls them away and pulls in deep gulps of air. There’s a knock at his bedroom door and his mother pokes her head in gently, half afraid, like she expects him to be _doing_ something he shouldn’t. As _if_.

“Josh? School time.”

He holds up a weak thumbs-up because he doesn’t think his voice is working just yet. His mom returns the gesture awkwardly (the days of being _cool_ long behind her) and closes the door as she leaves—thank god.

Josh stares up at the ceiling and one question comes to mind, the same question that he’s been asking himself for the last week.

Why the hell did he keep dreaming of _Tyler Joseph?_


	2. Craving Character Arcs

The first night that Tyler had the dream of the wasteland, he wasn’t alarmed. He knows a thing or two about fear, knows that fear lives in the head and can take form in dreams. The Gasmen with their empty goggle eyes and AR-15’s are frightening, but he’s seen things in his head (had _thoughts_ in his head) that are truly terrifying. In comparison, the Gasmen are child’s play.

The never-ending sense of _want_ that comes from the dream is harder to get through. There’s the thirst, which aches. His lips and tongue and heart dry up during the dreams. He spends the whole time wondering why. Why are they being marched through this desert? What is their purpose? Tyler might not feel so bad if he only had a _purpose_. He aches for that more than the water, even.

The question above all others, why aren’t they marching towards the trees?

Altogether, it isn’t the strangest nor the most frightening dream he’s ever had, but the next night, when it seems to pick up right where it left off, he’s intrigued. He’s had dreams that are similar to each other, potentially deemed recurring, but never dreams that could continue the next night. Sometimes, he used to have really good dreams (mostly just warm feelings of safety and a presence that comforts him). When he’d wake from those, if he was very careful and still, he might be able to slip back into them like slipping back into a comfortable coat at the beginning of wintertime.

The dream of the desert is so bland, though, that it was hard to know for the longest time that it was continuing, simply because nothing new ever seemed to happen. If it weren’t for the blossoming blisters on his heels and the growing ache of thirst in his throat and chest, he might not have ever known.

Usually, he shakes off his nightmares with the birth of the day, like shaking off the cobwebs and dust that the moon sprinkled over him during the night. This morning is just plain different. He feels unsettled. He feels like his skin is on a little too tight.

The weather doesn’t help. The school day that dawns is dreary, rainy, but what’s new in Columbus?

Tyler shrugs on his least-wrinkled school uniform: a gray and navy ensemble that actually isn’t as bad as it could be but definitely isn’t as stylish as TV makes school uniforms out to be. At least it fits him well. He even wishes there was a tie—nothing feels better than dressing to impress.

And he likes the way ties feels around his neck.

Is that weird? Is Tyler weird?

Maybe.

 _Definitely_ , a voice whispers. He smothers it and tries not to let it smother him. That’s the trick.

Tyler drives his younger brother Zack to school. The younger Joseph has headphones in and keeps his eyes glued to his iPhone. It leaves no room for conversation, but Tyler doesn’t mind. At least he can turn up the radio as loud as he wants and to whatever station pleases him without irritating his brother. This morning, he finds some Celine Dion and sings along, effeminately and as loudly as he can with no concern for Zack or any other car whose driver might peer into his window.

Zack catches sight of Tyler’s wild hand motions and glances at him out of the corner of his eye. He removes an earbud, winces, and puts it back in while laughing. By the time the song ends, Tyler feels a little better. The dream is no longer in the forefront of his mind. Music can do that. Music is, like, the best thing.

But once they’re out of the car and the only music is the residual hum from Zack’s headphones and his brother breaks away, lifting a hand to greet a group of sophomores huddling under the overhang outside of the school’s side doors—then Tyler can’t help but feel very alone. Being alone with your thoughts can be frightening.

In his ears are the distant pops of gunshots, and his heart races with the memory. He’s never _died_ in a dream before. What will happen tonight when he falls asleep? Will the dreams be gone for good, now? Tyler doesn’t know how he feels about that. He closes his eyes and feels the drizzling rain against his face and thinks of the trees in the distance, of the structure rising from the lush green forest—

—someone bumps shoulders with him. His eyes crack open, already apologizing for something that isn’t his fault, but the boy who bumped into him is moving away quickly, giving nothing more than a muttered:

“Sorry.”

“My bad,” Tyler calls out. The boy glances over his shoulder and there’s something familiar about the shape of his eyes. Before Tyler can decide what that familiar thing is, the boy turns, hunches his shoulders as if to make himself smaller, and practically sprints to get away from him.

Tyler rubs a hand against his shoulder, feeling a gentle ache that is already disappearing. He has a moment of déjà vu that is interrupted by the bell that rings over the school’s intercom system. The mass of students who had collected outside the school begins to press forward and he lets himself get lost in them until he’s just another person in the sea, unable to decide whether he feels comforted by that or disconcerted.

#

Tyler doesn’t know Josh, but Josh Dun knows plenty about him. It’s hard not to. He starts on the basketball team, which is a recipe for popularity in itself. Tyler has a decent seat on the social hierarchy, sits comfortably at a lunch table frequented by other sports players, and probably knows nothing about what it’s like to feel invisible.

Josh is not so low on the social hierarchy that he eats alone or is _bullied_ or something. That sort of thing happens in the movies, but not at tiny high schools in Columbus, Ohio. Sometimes, he wishes that it did. If life were like the movies, he probably _would_ be bullied; then, his redemption would be coming any scene, now. There’d be a character arc. It’d be sick.

Instead, Josh just _feels_ sort of sick. Especially because his fascination with Tyler Joseph is bordering on obsessive. But really, it’s not all Josh’s fault. For nearly the last week and a half, he’s been having dreams about him. He can’t help what he dreams, right?

Woah, don’t get weird about it. Not _those_ kind of dreams—thank god. _Those_ kinds of dreams (while being explicable considering Tyler isn’t a bad looking guy) would probably leave Josh in a state of embarrassment so keen that he’d have to drop out of high school and work full time at Guitar Center until he grew old and died at last.

Instead, the dreams are just strange. He is in some sort of hostage situation only he’s dressed like the captors and exists in constant fear of being found out as a fake. He can feel, can _fear_ , but otherwise he doesn’t seem to be in control of his body. A few nights before last, his body chased down a girl who had stepped off of the path and helped the men in gasmasks beat her to death. He woke up feeling guilty, horrified, sort of like turning himself into the police. _Yeah, I smashed a girl’s skull in during my dreams last night, lock me up._

It had taken a few days of marching for Josh to spot Tyler Joseph among the hostages. The basketball player seemed unconcerned with his captivity, bordering on lackadaisical, constantly lost within his own head.

Last night things had been different. When his eyes had closed and he’d entered that endless desert, his body had been _his_. He’d been jittery with nerves, nearly sick with them, and naked without the gun that the other men in gas masks carried. Being behind the wheel and controlling his own destiny was half terrifying and half exciting. The confidence he’d felt had been intoxicating.

Josh had a sinking feeling that he knew why tonight would be different. Tyler’s steps seemed slower, his eyes drawn more and more towards the east. Could he not feel the way the men in the gas masks were watching him, how incredibly _closely?_ He was going to get himself killed.

Unless…

His gloved hand on the back of Tyler’s head. Whispering through the white cloth that acted like his ‘gas mask’—pretty much the first time he’s ever spoken to Tyler, like, _ever_. Feeling like he’s on the verge of breaking into laughter or breaking apart into a thousand tiny, terrified pieces. He’d known that he wouldn’t stand a chance running from the men in the masks, but Tyler was the fastest kid on the basketball team. He had longer legs and was skinnier and all around more aerodynamic.

Josh felt instinctively that Tyler getting away from this death march and going east towards Eden was the _Most Important Thing_. Josh didn’t matter.

Even in his own dreams, Josh isn’t important.

The thought comes to Josh as he’s sketching in art class, and it feels like his charcoal pencil has poked right through his ribs. He drops the pencil and it rolls off of his desk but Josh doesn’t notice it or care. All of the sudden he’s having trouble breathing, like that pencil has punctured his lung and the other is having to work overtime. His chest aches.

 _Am I having a heart attack?_ He wonders. _I’m too young—I’m—_

“Woah dude,” Tyler Joseph says, hand appearing into Josh’s vision which is starting to tunnel and blacken at the edges like a paper tossed into the fire. “Dropped your pencil.”

Tyler Joseph, who has literally never spoken to Josh in the three semesters he’s attended this high school. Josh stares up at him and feels like he’s going to suffocate. He’s drawing breaths through his nose so rapidly that it’s making a strange whistling through his nostrils, but at the sight of Tyler, his mouth gapes.

Tyler’s, like, a really good looking dude. He’s holding out that stupid pencil and even though Josh can barely breathe, he reaches out to take the pencil so that Tyler won’t have to expend any more energy holding it out for him. It just so happens that the nerves between his brain and his body have been all mixed around so he ends up slapping at Tyler’s hand and sending the pencil flying across the room. The boy’s eyes widen.

“Are you alright?”

Josh nods frantically.

“You totally aren’t okay. Do you need a drink?”

Another frantic nod.

“I’ll tell the teacher where you went, just go. _Go._ ”

Josh goes, bursting out of the classroom door and down the hallway. There’s a sketchy water fountain that even he has to hunch down to reach. He drinks too fast and nearly chokes, but the longer he tries, the more his breaths slow. When his stomach churns with how much water he’s drunken, he turns and presses his back against the wall and collapses there. He probably looks like a complete weirdo, sitting on the floor, but fuck it. Fuck whoever wants to walk by while he’s weak like this, fuck those footsteps he hears coming up—

It’s Tyler. He’s got the books Josh left behind last class and seems completely unconcerned to find Josh slumped on the floor. He stoops down gracefully and crosses his legs. His legs are very long and thin and he’s wearing floral print shoes that Josh is nearly positive aren’t uniform.

“Okay?” Tyler asks.

“Yeah,” Josh mutters, face feeling hot. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Tyler says. He pauses, his mouth opening and closing like he has something to say but doesn’t know how to say it. Josh realizes that he probably shouldn’t be so fixated on another dude’s mouth, especially when that dude is sitting right next to him. Tyler doesn’t notice though.

He’s too busy flipping through the sketchbook on his lap.

Josh’s sketchbook.

He points to the picture that Josh was working on in the art room. It’s an image taken straight from his dream last night, a stark black and white piece of one of the men in gas masks.

“Nice picture,” Tyler says. “I—”

Tyler does the open-mouth-close-mouth bit again. Above them, the bell rings, loud and long. After its end, there are a few moments of silence before classroom doors all around them begin to open and students begin to fill the hall. With grace, Tyler stands in a flourish, passing down Josh’s abandoned textbooks. His face looks blank.

“See you around,” Tyler says, disappearing into crowd before Josh can say a word.

He sits where he’s slouched for another long moment, stunned by the other boy’s sudden exit.

Someone coughs above him, a girl who looks both concerned and irritated, only mostly irritated.

“You’re blocking my locker.”

Josh shifts his books into his arms and stands creakily, knees popping with protest. His head swims a little and his lungs still feel a little tight, but he doesn’t want to inconvenience anyone.

“Sorry,” he mutters.

#

Josh spends the whole day analyzing every little interaction he had with Tyler Joseph.

He spots the basketball player at lunch, but the other boy doesn’t seem to notice he’s there. Josh doesn’t blame him for not noticing. With his average build, average height, average hair, average eyes, average _everything_ , it’s kind of hard to notice Josh. It might be nearly impossible to distinguish him from—oh, say, a brick wall, or a dumpster, or anything that's bland and mostly useless.

He leaves his untouched tray behind even though he’s paid for it and spends the rest of the lunch period in the music room. The music teacher is an older guy who lets the kids call him by his first name and is pretty chill, especially with students like Josh who actually pay attention and seem to enjoy the subject.

Basically, he’d embarrassed himself. _Fatally._ What kind of weirdo has some sort of asthmatic episode in the middle of art class? He’d dropped his pencil, _twice_ , and then ran from the room. Had he even managed to speak three words? Josh stops in the middle of creating a steady beat on the nicest snare drum the school has to offer. He puts his head in his hands and exhales, tortured.

Despite all of that, it had been interaction. His heart starts to pound again just thinking about it. He’d been physically closer to Tyler than he’d been in nearly his whole three semesters at this school. If he’d been a more charismatic person, maybe he would have made the most of it. Maybe he could have gotten Tyler’s number, or at least made a decent impression. In his dream, he’d been so confident when talking to the other boy, so sure in his purpose.

But Josh is _Josh_ , so thoughts of confidence are nothing but wishful thinking.

#

Josh has to work directly after school at the Guitar Center across town. Since he doesn’t have a car, he rides his bike. He’s worked there since he turned sixteen. It had sounded like a dream job: getting to be around instruments all day and educate the customers who came in. Back then, Josh had been like a child, all doe-eyed and naïve.

It turns out that work at Guitar Center is only tolerable, occasionally punctuated with times that are awesome and more than occasionally punctuated with times that are absolutely miserable. Most of the time, Josh is selling Squires to first-time guitarists or listening to accomplished players come in and shred but leave without buying anything.

Sometimes though he can sneak off to the drum kit and show off his skills. He used to be pretty shitty, but he’s getting better all the time. He used to think about playing in the pep band—they perform at basketball games—just so maybe Tyler Joseph would notice him, but he was told that playing set was a matter of seniority, and considering Josh had never been in the pep band in his entire life (had only gone to the school for a matter of months even), odds are he’d start out on the triangle. Or worse, the _bass drum_.

Altogether, work is a painfully dull experience, but at least he’s making money. He’s saving up. For what, he’s not sure yet—maybe a set, maybe an apartment, maybe a plane ticket. Leaving Columbus is his dream. But, yeah right, like he’d ever be one of _those people_ who could pick up and leave everything at a moment's notice and start over somewhere else. Even if he were, it wouldn’t matter: Josh is worried that he will always be this unhappy whether he’s in Columbus or Canada or Cuba or Columbia because it’s not his surroundings, it’s _him_.

By the time the store is closing, it’s dark and raining. Josh spends a long minute staring at the downpour trying to decide if he should call his mom for a ride, but when he gets outside the decision is made for him. Columbus isn’t a crime ridden city, but the strip mall where the Guitar Center is located isn’t the best part of town. Someone has used bolt cutters to cut through the chain on his bike and has stolen it. Josh lets out several choice words that he wouldn’t be caught dead saying around his mother.

Any normal person would definitely call for a ride, but Josh is feeling miserable enough that now he just wants to feel _more_ miserable. Misery is addictive that way, like how he’ll be bummed and listen to nothing but sad songs just to fall deeper into the sad stupor. So, instead, Josh sets out walking.

He’s soaked almost immediately. Most of the walk home is just a blur of wishing he could step out into traffic or wishing the rain would swell and drown him. When he arrives home, he’s a half an hour later than usual. Both of his parents and his sisters are downstairs watching some comedy sitcom on television. They all gape at him when he comes through the door, dripping on the hardwood floors.

“Bike was stolen,” he says. He glances at the TV. It’s a program he usually watches with his family, but it seems like they’ve started without him.

“Why didn’t you call?” His mother asks. “I would have picked you up.”

Josh doesn’t answer, just moves past them straight to his room to grab a change of clothes and then on to the bathroom where he turns the hot water in the shower on as high as he can stand it. He shivers the whole time, and even when he’s crawling into bed, he feels a cold numbness reaching all the way down into his bones. It can’t be shaken.

That night, he dreams of Tyler again.


	3. Like Groundhog's Day Only Worse

When Tyler opens his eyes in his dreamscape, he can’t help but feel disappointed.

He’s marching again. The sun overhead is just as hot and merciless as always, and he already feels like he’s been marching for _forever_. Blisters on his heels have bloomed and burst and make every step painful. His temple aches, and when he reaches up to touch it, his hand comes away with flakes of dried blood. The last dream _had_ happened. Yet, nothing had changed.

“Tyler!” A voice shouts. He twists his head to look for the source but just sees the same sea of people, lined by Gasmen who don’t seem preoccupied with the shouts. “Tyler Joseph! Here!”

Someone comes up to trot next to him, and it’s the not-Gasman from his last dream. His hair is matted with blood and sweat. One of his eyes is bruised with blood in the white. The cloth which had covered his mouth and nose is drawn down around his chin and Tyler is momentarily stunned to see that where this boy was unfamiliar the last time they met in a dream, Tyler knows him now.

It’s the boy from art class.

He knows the kid's name—he’s been in the same art class since the beginning of the year after all —and his name is on the tip of Tyler’s tongue but it just won’t come. Name or no name, seeing a familiar face in this unknown mass of people is so _welcome_.

There’s a thought that that nags at the back of his mind, though: why this kid? Tyler had never spoken to him until earlier that day. It might make sense to see him in his dreams tonight given the odd interaction they’d had just hours ago, but for Tyler to dream of him last night before they’d ever spoken…

“Hey—” Tyler hesitates awkwardly, still scrambling for the boy’s name.

“Josh,” says Josh. He doesn’t look upset that Tyler didn’t know his name, which makes him feel a little better.

“Hey, Josh,” Tyler says. He gets a good look at him. Josh has a narrow chin and a well-shaped nose. His eyes are wide until he smiles (like he is right now) and then they squint into warm slits. The boy in front of him is a far cry from the boy struggling to breathe in class. His smile is impressive. Josh-from-art-class has a nearly perfect set of teeth, and in the sunlight, surrounded by strangers, he’s kind of the most beautiful thing Tyler’s ever seen.

Josh’s face grows somber as a Gasman goes by, but it pays them no attention with its alienesque, goggle-eyes. When he speaks, it's more hushed. “Listen, we have to get out of here.”

“That didn’t work so well last time,” Tyler points out, touching his temple gingerly. It stings.

“I know, we did it all wrong. You can’t run from your problems. You have to face them,” Josh says, sounding like some after school Doctor Phil special.

“You want us to face these guys?” Tyler says, jerking a thumb at the imposing captors. “Because they’ve got guns. All I’ve got are these—” Tyler holds up his fists, “—and I’m not too confident with them. I only ever hit my brothers when they eat the last Oreo but don’t throw away the container, because that’s not just lazy, it’s cruel.”

Josh frowns. “Heinous. I used to have a gun here, but it’s gone now. I think I’m like you for now—one of the marchers. I don’t know what to do, but we really should be heading to the Treehouse.”

“Treehouse?” Tyler yelps. “Is that that _building_ over in the trees?”

“Totally.”

“How do you know that?” It’s a little suspicious, this figure that has suddenly appeared and encourages him to go against the rules of the dream. Can he trust Josh?

“I used to be one of these guys with the gasmasks. It was like, I was inside my body but I wasn’t in control of it. I could only listen and see. Then, one day, I was in control. I know everything that they know, I guess.”

“Where are we going, then?” Tyler asks, desperate. “All I can see is this desert. There's nothing here. Why are we marching like this?”

“It’s not all desert. Don’t you know? We’re marching to the sea.”

“To the sea? That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“We’re going to march right off of the pier and into the ocean.”

Tyler frowns. “I don’t know how to swim.”

“No one does,” Josh says. “That’s kind of the point. These men in the masks, they’ll march you right up to the pier and right off of it. Then they turn around and make the walk back to the start where they pick up more people. There’s always more to march.”

“I don’t want to die again. How far is the sea?”

“A day’s march or so. Maybe less now. Can’t you see it? Look ahead—squint. It’s not like the trees that rise up. It’s flat so it’s harder to see.”

Tyler does as Josh says, leaning his head as far out of the line of marchers as he dares to squint out at the horizon. Sure enough, there is a long, blurry smear. It might have been indistinguishable if Josh hadn’t told him what to look for. There’s even the gentle wisp of clouds there, nearly invisible against the white-washed sky. It looked like everything Tyler’s been hoping for.

Except he’s headed there to _die_.

“What are we going to do?” Tyler asks, his voice catching. "I don't want to die."

“I don’t know,” Josh says. “But we have time to figure it out. At least until the dream ends.”

Tyler glances at Josh shrewdly. It isn't often that a figment of one's imagination acknowledges that they aren't real. “You…know that this is a dream?”

Josh laughs and the sound is so infectious that even Tyler smiles. “Of course. Do you think I'd be talking to you like this in real life? This is all fake. As long as I don’t turn back into one of these guys with the gas masks, then I think—”

The Gasman has been creeping up on them so silently that neither noticed until it was too late. Josh is grabbed by the scruff of his shirt and pulled away. Tyler feels the barrel of a gun through his shirt, right between his shoulder blades, hot and nudging him along painfully off the path and down to his knees. Josh is forced along with the swarm of marchers, struggling against the Gasman and shouting.

“Tyler! I’ll find you at the pier! I’ll find you!”

Tyler squints up into the sun at the circle of Gasmen around him. The first blow is from the end of the AR-15. It smashes against his cheek and nobody ever mentions just how badly getting hit _hurts_. He presses his hand against the wet, throbbing wound and is hit once more on the back of the head.

All goes dark and silent.

But Tyler isn’t alone in the darkness.

 _Blurryface_  a voice whispers.

In this dark place where Tyler can’t move even to blink, he can’t fight against his thoughts either. They flow in and out of his head like water in a sieve. They are dark thoughts, thoughts that _hurt_ just like the AR-15 but in a different place. Time passes in a way he can’t follow. There are flashes of movement from the shadows, but Tyler can’t even turn his eyes to watch—

—until Blurryface is standing _right in front of him._

His eyes are dry from lack of blinked and the image is blurred, but he doesn't need to see. The thing about Blurryface is that anyone might mistake him for Tyler. They are identical physically, but in the darkness, all Tyler can see is Blurry’s face, neck smudged away into blackness.

Blurryface reaches out. Still paralyzed, Tyler can’t even flinch to avoid the vile touch. Blurry presses his thumb against the soft skin under Tyler’s eye like a caress before reaching up to push _through_ the eye.

There is nothing Tyler can do—not even scream.

When he wakes up in his bed, he is crying. There is still an hour until his alarm will sound to wake him up for school, but he forces himself out of bed and presses his palms against his stinging eyes. When he looks into the mirror in the bathroom, his eyes are normal. Red and swollen from tears cried in his sleep, but not _squished_ or anything.

Afraid to shower this early and wake the rest of his family, Tyler goes back to his bed, pulls the covers over his head like a child hiding from a monster, and lies awake until the sun rises and his alarm clock begins to shriek.

#

Throughout the day, Tyler is like one of the walking dead. He nearly runs a red light on his way to school, and even Zack is giving him concerned looks from the passenger seat. Zack, who is like, oblivious. Tyler is so distracted by a dark figure crossing the parking lot outside the window of his first period that gets called out for his lack of focus in front of the whole class. His face burns with embarrassment but he has to make _sure_ —and yes, it is just a random student late for school.

 _Duh, Tyler,_ a voice whispers in his head. _What were you expecting? A figment of your imagination?_

Maybe. Is that crazy? Tyler doesn’t want to be crazy. Sometimes, he does things and thinks things that he keeps to himself because he’s afraid of being labeled that way. The other boys on the basketball team don’t have voices in their heads that sometimes make them feel bad—really bad. At least, if they _do_ have those voices, they don’t talk about them. Ever. The other boys have dreams about girls and sex and making the winning basket at the State Championship game.

They don’t dream about guns, about men in gas masks, or about kids from art class.

They don’t have fading marks on their arms—but _no_. He won’t think of that now.

Tyler knows that he is different, and it’s not a good feeling. Columbus is a great place to grow up, but that’s because everyone is the same and no one tries to change it. He thinks about the notebooks of poems he has filling a box in his closet, thinks about how he feels singing in the shower when he knows no one else is home. Those are pieces of himself that he will _never_ show anyone.

In order to fit in, he had to make sacrifices. If those sacrifices just happened to involve hiding some of the best parts of himself, he’d just have to deal with it.

#

Josh had woken up on his own before his mother could come in to urge him into consciousness. He lied there for several long minutes, distraught. Whenever he would close his eyes, he could see a ring of men in hazmat suits surrounding a tiny figure on the ground taking turns to beat him.

Josh should have been warm under his blanket, but he was still shivering. He felt a little sick.

But Josh hadn’t missed a day of school ever since moving to Columbus. How else would he get 60 minutes of voyeuristic satisfaction watching Tyler Joseph go about his school day? Not to mention, it was Friday. If he didn’t go today, then he wouldn’t see Tyler until Monday. That would be, like, forever. Josh would go to school no matter what. Pneumonia? No problem. Broken leg? He'll hitch a ride. 

So Josh had loaded himself up on Tylenol and trudged to school on foot, mourning the loss of his bike. Now he stands outside his art class with a gaggle of other students waiting for the rest of the previous class still inside to shove off and make room. Tyler’s there waiting also, and Josh is pointedly looking at the bulletin board _right by_ Tyler’s head so that he can soak the basketball player in peripherally. 

There’s no reason to be subtle, though: Tyler seems like his head is in the clouds today.

Finally the art teacher, Miss Teague comes to usher them in. She’s an average looking redhead with thick freckles, fresh out of college. Well, fresh out of acting as a TA at another school. This high school in Columbus is her first full-time teaching gig, and it actually makes Josh feel a little better that he’s not the newest person at the school anymore.

She stops Josh on his way in.

“Hey, Josh, hang out with me,” she says, motioning to her side. Josh winces. She might only be a few years older than them (and some might think that makes her _cool_ ) but really, there’s nothing worse than a teacher singling you out or trying too hard to be your friend. His heart pounds while the other students file in not paying him any attention.

When they’re all gone, Teague closes the door. The hallway is mostly silent except for the quick shuffling of students who are probably going to be late to their classes if they don’t pick up the slack.

“Is something wrong?” Josh asks, shifting his books in his arms so he can wipe his sweaty palm discreetly on his school uniform.

“No, no, no. Not really. I just wanted to see how you were. Tyler told me that you had a panic attack last class.”

Josh feels like someone has slapped him across the face. This is, like, the worst thing that could possibly happen.

“I’m fine,” Josh says.

She stares at him, disbelieving. “Was it something that happened in class? Did someone give you a hard time?”

“No, it wasn’t anything like that.”

She waits for him to elaborate, but he’s not going to. Not if a million men in gas masks and hazmat suits surround him and try to convince him to talk. His mouth is sealed. Locked, and the key is thrown away. No _way_.

“I used to have serious anxiety issues when I was your age,” she admits, and Josh has to stifle a groan. What’s worse than a teacher trying to force him to open up? A teacher opening up _to_ him. Josh listens politely, eyes flickering to the tiny window in the door. He can’t spot Tyler from this angle and laments it. “It seemed like no one cared or no one wanted to make things any easier on me. I don’t want you to feel like that.”

“Thanks,” he says because he can’t think of anything else to say. There was a flicker through the window and it looked a lot like Tyler’s elbow. Trust Josh, he’s got mental images of all of Tyler’s stray limbs. They're catalogued and alphabetized.

“That’s why I’m offering to let you choose your partner for the upcoming assignment.”

 _Now_ Teague has Josh’s attention. He snaps his head back to her, and she seems to notice that she’s finally reached him. Her eyebrows rise.

“Partner?”

“Yes. Next Monday we’re starting a new section and it requires collaboration. I’m going to assign partners over the weekend—but I know that not being able to pick your partner isn’t exactly a _popular_ route for a teacher to take.” She smiles. “I used to dread it. I always got stuck with people who couldn’t stand me, or people I couldn’t stand, or people who—never mind. What I’m trying to say is—and don’t tell _anyone_ —if you give me a suggestion of who you want your partner to be for the assignment, I’ll take it into consideration. I want you to succeed, Josh.”

“Tyler Joseph,” he answers, immediately, because he likes to torture himself and also because he can. “I won’t tell anyone—I promise. Thank you. I think that will really help me.”

Her face lights up, and Josh almost feels bad for using her like this. “Awesome! That’s what I like to hear. Alright, remember—our little secret. Now get in there and get to work.”

Josh feels… _naughty_ after his talk with Miss Teague. Tyler is in his usual spot across the room, a colored pencil held laxly in his hand, staring out the window. He’s got no idea what Josh has done. It feels like a dirty little secret or something. Once Josh has taken his seat, his anxiety is back. The high of choosing Tyler as his partner is wearing off, and now he feels like an idiot. He can’t even say three words to the kid. How is Josh supposed to complete an entire project with him?

Groaning, Josh puts his head in his hands. When he’s done wallowing in his own self-pity (ha, like he’ll ever be finished doing _that_ ), he opens his sketchbook and does more work on the gas mask from his dream. He’s not bad with linework, but the shading is all wrong.

Tyler Joseph doesn’t so much as look Josh’s way for the entire class. In fact, he doesn’t look at anyone, and he doesn’t open his sketchbook once. He spends the whole time staring out the window at the sunny parking lot, knuckles turning white around his cerulean colored pencil.

#

Work is actually not so bad. It’s slow enough that Josh spends long sections of times on the drums, playing along to the songs that play on a loop in the store. He even gets off early when it’s still a little light out. He’s looking forward to walking home, but there’s a familiar car resting at the curb. He peers in through the window, gaping.

“Mom?”

She motions for him to get in, so he does, glancing back at the store to make sure none of his older coworkers could see him getting picked up by his mom. Talk about social suicide.

“How was work?” She asks.

“Fine. What are you doing here?”

“Well, you don’t have your bike anymore, so I thought I’d wait for you to get out of work and give you a ride home. I don’t like the thought of you walking home in the dark.”

“How’d you know that I’d get off early?”

She doesn’t reply right away. Josh glances away from the road and sees that in the dimming light of the evening, she seems so much older all of the sudden. When had his mom gotten old? He couldn’t remember.

“I guess I was just nervous,” she says at last.

“What for?”

“To talk to you. There was a message on the machine when I got home. From a Miss Teague?”

Josh’s mouth goes dry. “Yeah? What’d she want?”

“She told me that you had some sort of—of _episode_ in her class? A _panic attack_?”

Josh can’t speak. His throat feels like there’s a fist wrapped around it, squeezing tight. He feels a little bit like having a panic attack right then and there.

“Why didn’t you tell me that you’d been having problems like that?”

“Mom, don’t.”

She looks hurt. “Don’t what? Worry about you? I’m your mother. I can’t help it.”

“You can. So. Just don’t.”

They pull into the driveway, but his mom doesn’t unlock the car. He’s thinking of unlocking it himself, of pulling up on the lock if he has to and tucking and rolling out into the grass. Whatever it would take to get away from this conversation, he’s willing to do it. All the street lights have come on, and there’s a warm glow from the window in the house that Josh knows is the kitchen. Josh would give anything to be in there right now and not having this talk.

“Listen to me. You’re almost an adult. I get it. You embarrass easily. I get it. I’m not stupid, Joshua. I’m not so old that I don’t remember what it was like for my parents to show _actual concern_ —how _terrible_. So, if it makes it easier for you, just nod or shake your head to me. Understand?” Josh sighs.

“Did you have an issue in your art class? Something with your anxiety?” He shrugs.

He shrugs.

“Is this a problem for you often?”

Yes. All the time. More often than he’d admit to himself even, much less to anyone else. So he shakes his head in the negative.

His mom sighs.

“I made you an appointment with the doctor for next Wednesday after school. I want you to go and talk to someone about this. You and your father are just the same, never wanting to admit anything’s wrong. Well, sometimes being strong means admitting that there’s a problem. Think about it, Joshua.” She unlocks her door, gets out, and shuts it behind her. Josh sits, stunned, in the passenger seat. She doesn’t look back when he makes no movement to leave the car. The front door shuts behind her, and Josh feels ashamed. He feels even worse when he makes the trek from the car into the house. He even considers sleeping out there, he feels so bad.

Josh sits, stunned, in the passenger seat. She doesn’t look back when he makes no movement to leave the car. The front door shuts behind her, and Josh feels ashamed. He feels even worse when he makes the trek from the car into the house. He even considers sleeping out there, he feels so bad.

It’s physically painful to stop by his mom on his way to his room. She’s in the kitchen alone, sitting with her head in her hands. Were her shoulders shaking? Was she _crying?_ God. If his mom was crying, he wouldn’t be able to take it. But when she hears his shoes on the linoleum, she looks up and her eyes are dry and clear.

“Who’s the appointment with?” He has to clear his throat twice to get the words out through the knot that's formed there.

“Your primary physician. 3:30.”

“Alright.” He wants to say more, but the words just won’t come. Josh stands there for a moment longer silently pleading with his mother to just _understand_.

She gives him a wane smile and he knows that she gets it. He gives her a weak thumbs up and trudges to his room, feeling like the weight of the world is on his shoulders. It might as well be. Doesn’t a mother’s expectations equate to the weight of the world? Maybe not for everyone, but it certainly does for Josh.

In his room, Josh takes his crumpled work schedule out of his pocket and pins it up on his bulletin board. He works all weekend—awesome. He strips and falls into bed, feeling like he could sleep for a hundred years and it wouldn’t be enough.


	4. March to the Sea

Sun overhead. The cry of seagulls in the distance. Sweat on his aching neck. Cheek and head throbbing. Feet shuffling through the dust. Tyler blinks to clear his eyes just in time for a Gasman to poke him harshly in the ribs. The nudge is strong enough to push him back into line with the other marchers. He’d been swaying dangerously, partly delirious from the heat.

If this dream weren’t about to end one way, it’d be about to end another. Tyler doesn’t feel like he can walk much longer.

“Hey.”

A hostage who looks _just like him_ brushes Tyler’s shoulder on his way by and up to the front of the marchers. He turns to look over his shoulder back at him. “Just give up already.”

Tyler blinks hard. The figure is gone, but even in the heat of the desert, Tyler is left with goosebumps. When he squints upwards, he sees wispy clouds. Ahead is the ocean, a massive, roiling creature both peaceful and powerful. Tyler’s never seen the ocean before. The closest he’s ever come was Lake Michigan as a child. Leading out into the ocean is a long, narrow pier of grayed wood, waves beating against the supports that disappear deep into the water. He thinks that if he were anywhere else, doing anything else, then he might be able to enjoy the beautiful sight.

Leading out into the ocean is a long, narrow pier of grayed wood, waves beating against the supports that disappear deep into the water. He thinks that if he were anywhere else, doing anything else, then he might be able to enjoy the beautiful sight.

When he cranes his neck east, he can still see the trees. Are they evergreens or oaks? He’ll never get the chance to find out. He feels hopeless, defeated. He feels like crying.

Then the thought comes to him: Josh.

Josh! Josh-from-art-class. As discreetly as he can, he begins to scan the crowd shuffling to the pier, looking for him. There are several dozen people to check, and given the fact that Josh is not particularly tall and doesn’t have some super convenient feature like a head of flaming red hair, it’s more difficult than he’d like it to be. Finally, he’s pretty sure he’s looked at everyone— _twice._

Josh isn’t there.

Tyler’s stomach sinks back into despair. Whatever’s coming, he’s going to have to face it alone.

Another nudge from the Gasman behind him. Tyler is just about at the end of his rope. He turns to give the alien creature a pleading look and nearly jumps out of his skin.

It’s Josh, white cloth splattered with blood but pulled up around his nose. Josh _is_ in this dream— just not as a hostage. For a moment, Tyler hopes that it’s a ruse, but he can tell by the wide, blank slant in the other boy’s eyes that something is very wrong. He doesn’t know Josh well, but he’s never seen the boy in his dreams without a smile, eyes squinting.

He’s armed, too. A gun just like the Gasmen’s is strapped across his chest which is bare, skin slightly pinkened and turning tan from the sun.

Josh hits him in the shoulder with the end of the semi-automatic to urge him to turn and continue walking. It stings, and Tyler reaches up to rub at the forming bruise. He’s got tears in his eyes— not because the blow was particularly painful, but because the one person he thought could help has now become one of the people who will hurt him. It’s unjust. It’s cruel. Things like that just aren’t supposed to happen.

Tyler can’t give up, though. That’s the terrible thing about hope. It probably would be better for him to accept his fate and prepare himself for the pier. It might hurt less in the end—but he _can’t_. He has to hope. It’s a disease. It’s a weed that takes root in his heart and won’t stop growing even when he cuts it out. So instead of hanging his head and continuing the march, he slows his pace ever so slightly so that he’s even with Josh.

“Josh,” he says.

Josh ignores him.

“I know you’re in there. You said the other night that you’re aware, but you just can’t do anything about it. I—I really need you Josh. Please come back.”

There’s no indication that Josh is even hearing him, but Tyler isn’t dead yet, so he takes that as promising. The ground under his feet is changing gradually from rough, compact dirt into pebbles and into sand that makes it hard to walk. He’s getting sand in his sneakers, but that’s the least of his worries.

“You said you’d come for me. You said you’d find me at the pier, and we’re almost at the pier now. Where are you?” Tyler doesn’t mean for his voice to sound so _small_ , but that’s just how he feels. Josh’s apathetic silence continues and Tyler turns away.

They’re upon the pier. Dozens of people standing at the shore, making a neat line. Tyler is jostled and elbowed but falls into his place towards the middle. Josh disappears towards the back with the rest of the Gasmen. When a single shot is fired into the air, people begin to move forward. Suddenly, Tyler realizes that they aren’t being forced into the sea. They’re going there willingly, and somehow that makes it all worse.

What had Josh said in the last dream, about facing problems?

Tyler steps out of line and sprints, stumbling through the sand to make it to the front. His feet connect with the pier and slap against the rickety, faded wood. It sways under him and he nearly loses his balance and falls into the line but barely manages to catch himself. He’s shouting at the top of his lungs to stall the people ahead, nonsense words that even _he_ can’t understand, until he’s the front of the line.

For a moment, he’s staring at the sea, gray and so _massive_. The waves seem to call to him, and he feels the almost irresistible urge to throw himself in and let himself be carried away into the sea and the salt.

 _No_ , a voice says inside his head powerfully. Tyler has _purpose_. He turns, prepared to give the speech of his life and talk down this massive group of marchers.

He turns to face his mother, who is leading the line.

“Mom?” He whispers, voice washed away by the sea.

“Tyler?” She replies, the gentle skin between her eyebrows furrowing. “What are you doing up here? You should be back in the line.”

Behind her is a whole stretch of familiar faces. They aren’t the strangers Tyler thought. He sees his mother and father, his brothers, his _baby sister_. There is the whole basketball team, all his friends from school, teachers and acquaintances all in line and ready to march into the sea.

“No!” Tyler shouts to be heard over the roaring waves. “We’re not going to do this! There’s another way!”

His mom shakes her head, smiling sadly. The line moves forward, pier creaking and swaying. He reaches for her but feels paralyzed as he watches her step off into the ocean. Tyler is screaming at the top of his lungs, but his voice is drowned out. The line is pressing on him, urging him to the edge. They push him: his father and his brothers and a person who looks _just like him_ but isn’t him, all trying to convince him to step off.

Tyler won’t. He’s pushing through, scrambling to get further away from the edge, but there are just too many people. He feels suffocated in this sea of hands and bodies.

“ _Tyler Joseph!_ ”

His head snaps up. Through the sea of people is a boy with almond shaped eyes pushing through the sea of bodies, parting it like Moses did the Red Sea. Josh tears the cloth from his face and lets it flutter away on the breeze. His hand is outstretched, and Tyler reaches for it like it’s a buoy in the sea. And it is.

“You heard me!” Tyler shouts back, laughing. “I knew it! I knew you were in there!” Their hands clasp, and Josh’s is _so warm_. When did Tyler get so _cold?_

“Tyler, jump off the pier,” Josh roars, cupping a hand around Tyler’s ear to shout into and be heard over the waves.

“What?” Tyler asks, gaping.

“Together. We go together! And when you hit the water, swim hard!”

For some absolutely ridiculous, entirely foolish reason, Tyler trusts Josh. With Josh’s hand in his own, he feels strong. In the waking world, Tyler isn’t so crazy about touching—has always found it uncomfortably intimate, and while this is, he finds he doesn't mind it. They squeeze grips so tight that Tyler’s fingers hurt but it’s a good hurt. He stops fighting the flow of the crowd and allows himself and Josh to be pulled to the front. 

Hand in hand, they jump.

And they swim. Hard. The water is freezing, like knives all over his body, sucking any breath left from his lungs. His clothes weigh him down and it’s not as easy as it looks on TV, especially when he’s holding on to Josh’s hand with a death grip and can only flail with one arm—but Tyler will let himself drown before he loses that last lifeline. Instead, he kicks. Even when he’s tired, he keeps kicking. Even when the water is stinging his eyes and is in his ears and nose and mouth and throat, _he keeps kicking_.

When their heads break water, it’s the most beautiful breath he’s ever taken. He feels himself pulled along but just keeps focusing on _breathing_. It’s all he can do. It’s all anyone can do, sometimes. At last his kicking legs touch sand, and then it isn’t such a struggle anymore to keep his head above water.

Sopping wet and gasping for breath, he and Josh step out onto the sandy beach, hand in hand. They look back to the pier in time for Tyler to watch his school’s secretary step off and into the sea. When she touches the water, she turns into a mist that floats away on the breeze with just the gentlest puff of air taken away on the tinted seafoam.

“That’s beautiful,” Tyler croaks through the water in his throat.

“It’s always beautiful from this distance. It’s not so pretty when you’re standing on the pier.”

The Gasmen have turned long ago and are tiny dots on the horizon, marching back to wherever they came from to bring a new group to the pier and the sea.

“What’s next?” Tyler asks.

Josh smiles and it makes Tyler’s heart stutter. “To the forest.”

#

Tyler jolts into consciousness at the buzzing and wailing of the alarm clock on his nightstand. He slaps out blindly with one hand to silence it, groaning. When the quiet is restored, he lies in the warmth of the sun that streams through the window, smiling.

It’s Saturday. There’s no reason to get up this early, but Tyler prefers to rise with the sun. Usually Saturdays are spent in the backyard shootings hoops with Zack or binge-watching shows on Netflix, but today is going to be different. Tyler rolls out of bed and stalks to the closet in just his boxers. In the back is a box filled with spiral notebooks that his mother picked up on discount. The top notebook’s cover is worn with use, and it’s the one he grabs to flip through.

Dozens of snippets of poems and the seeds of songs. Nobody knows that Tyler is a poet.

Sometimes, words come to him and just won’t leave him alone, floating behind his eyelids until he writes them down in the book and puts them away.

He’s not sure, but he thinks that some of them are kind of _good_.

Tyler grabs a pen off of his desk and chooses to curl up back in bed, notebook on his lap. There are words brewing, a song most definitely. He lets his hand write until it cramps, sometimes scribbling out words that don’t work the way he wants them to and other times adding them inside the margins.

When his hand aches, he lets it rest, staring towards the sunshine. Today he feels…good. He feels like the notebooks in his closet and the lyrics and even the fading lines on his arm might make him different from other people, but it doesn’t have to be a bad thing. He is himself, and today he is happy.

He stands abruptly. This calls for action. This calls for leaving the house (something he _does not do_ ) for a purpose other than school or basketball or church.

There’s this strip mall in town. Maybe that’s where he’ll go.

#

Josh woke at precisely seven in the morning, which was weird because he didn’t have any alarm set for the weekend. Then again, he’s heard that one’s body has its own internal clock which can be just as precise, so that probably explains it. He’s only been waking up for school at seven for months, right? That must have been ingrained deep in his brain by now. Sometimes, he has this recurring nightmare about his alarm _not going off_ , but it’s not important.

That dream. _That’s_ important.

He closes his eyes, thankful for his blackout curtains that keep the sun away from his bed, and picks the dream apart.

When he’d stepped into the dream as one of the men with the gas masks, he’d been horrified. His body wasn’t his own, no matter how much force he put into trying to take it back from whatever had taken it over. He’d given in and resigned himself to be a spectator only, which would have been easier if his subconscious wasn’t torturing him by conjuring up Tyler in the crowd of hostages and forcing Josh to _hurt him_.

 _This is just a dream,_ Josh had told himself. But that didn’t keep him from loathing the pain on Tyler’s expression, the pleading, desperate tone Tyler had used to appeal to Josh’s body. If there was one thing Josh was learning about his mind during these dreams, it’s that his mind hates him and wants to torture him.

He’d stood on the shore with the other men in gas masks and watched the marchers line up on the pier. Then the others had turned away, and he was meant to as well.

 _No_ , Josh thought. _We need to help Tyler._ Against his will, his body started to turn from the pier. He felt an overwhelming panic; his heart was pounding with it.

Then, a thought came to him: if he wasn’t in control of his body, then why was his heart beating so _hard?_ Because Josh was _afraid._ This was something that Josh was controlling, and without the heart, what would his body be? If he’s able to control the most important part of his body, then maybe he had more control than he thought.

Whatever spell that held him back was broken. He would have pushed every last person off of the pier to get to Tyler, but when it was clear that the crowd wouldn’t let them get away, there had been only one exit—through the sea.

It might have seemed depressing to an outsider: jumping into the sea—but he was with _Tyler_. Nothing could be depressing when he’s with Tyler, even if it’s just a dream and Tyler isn’t real. Nothing could be depressing when Josh had thrown off his own chains and taken control of his body. He’d felt victorious, high off of the triumph and Tyler.

Coming out of that sea had been the best feeling—and it hadn’t even been _real._

#

Josh works an open-to-close shift. It’s basically the closest management can get to giving him the middle finger because he’s the newest worker there (even though he transferred from another Guitar Center _months ago_ ). Josh tries to keep himself positive by calculating how much money he will make on his shift.

It’s not enough. Not with the bills he pays: rent, his cell phone, his insurance. He doesn’t have to pay those things, technically, but he knows that his parents are struggling financially. Supporting four children isn’t a walk in the park, and sometimes duties fall on the oldest child. He’s got an unspoken responsibility to help provide for his family.

After enough of _those_ thoughts, Josh dives headfirst into his shift and refuses to complain for another moment. He’s got a nice house and family. He’s not allowed to complain.

Josh spends most of the morning shifting product from the stockroom to the selling floor, which isn’t such a bad job. Sometimes, he’s interrupted by customers asking questions, but the other salesmen on the floor know to step in to take the burden off of him so he can keep up with his duties. He spends a lot of time on ladders or crouching to reach bottom shelves, but at least he feels accomplished when he’s finished and moving onto the floor to pick up someone’s spot whose shift is ending.

He’s thinking of taking his lunch—a cheesy gordita crunch sounds sick right about now—when _Tyler Joseph_ enters the establishment. Warning bells go off in Josh’s head. There’s an alarm, a siren, a general panic. Tyler Joseph is in his place of business. Well, not _Josh’s_ place of business, but the place where he does business and makes money for other—oh god, Tyler had spotted him.

Not that he didn’t secretly _want_ Tyler to spot him. It was just a little awkward facing the boy in real life, when last night in Josh’s dreams they’d taken a shirtless swim through the sea, holding hands like two lovers or something. He sighed internally. Wasn’t that a thought.

He goes to ask Tyler the usual, _can I help you find something?_ spiel, but another worker on the floor beats him to it. Josh glares childishly. Like, seriously? What are the fucking odds. God, Josh hates his life.

But Tyler is brushing the guy off, pointing at Josh. Josh turns his head to make sure there’s no one standing right behind him, but he’s backed himself flush against the assorted wall of strings. Tyler comes over, shoving his hands into his pockets right up to the wrists. Josh has never seen him in anything other than school clothes, but today he’s wearing a button down shirt, jeans, and those floral shoes from that day in the hallway.

“Hey, dude,” Tyler says.

“’sup,” Josh says because it’s short and he can’t possibly screw up such a simple word or stutter over his tongue or accidentally say a spoonerism or anything fatal that might make him hide in the stock room and hang himself with a guitar strap from the ceiling beams. Suddenly, he remembers that this isn’t a social meeting. He’s on the clock. That eases his anxiety tenfold. “Looking for something?”

“Yes,” Tyler says, resolutely. “I’m looking for an instrument. I just…don’t know what.”

“ _Okay_ ,” Josh drawls slowly. “Like, drums?”

“Not drums, my parents would never let me bring those home.”

“So, a guitar?”

“Sure,” Tyler says. “Or—no. No, everybody plays guitar.”

“But strings are fine?” Josh asks.

“Yeah, I think I can handle strings. My little brother has a bass. Sometimes, I steal it from him and mess around with it. I play it, I mean.”

“So, bass-guitar, maybe?”

“No—like I said, Zack has one and, well, I kind of want to be different.”

Josh smiles. “Different, huh? I think I’ve got the instrument for you.”

In the back corner of the store rests a sound proof, temperature and humidity controlled room. Through the glass door, one can see the acoustic guitars lining the walls stretching up to the ceiling. Even though Josh didn’t play guitar, it was one of the quietest places in the store and therefore one of his favorite places to be.

He holds the door open for Tyler.

“Ukuleles are easy to learn to play. The neck is smaller, which makes it easier on some artists with small hands. Not that you have small—yeah. Anyway. It’s also going viral online; I can YouTube a ukulele cover of literally any song you could think of, but it’s still not commonplace. It’s totally hipster.”

The wall beside the door held the store’s modest collection of ukuleles. He isn’t sure what Tyler would think, but judging by the wide-eyed wonder on the boy’s face, Josh has done something _right_ , and god isn’t that a good feeling. Tyler reaches out to drag a tan thumb over the strings listening to the tinny sound it made. He fiddles with the price tag.

“I want it.”

“Really?”

“ _Yeah_ ,” Tyler says. He looks unsure for a moment. “I actually write songs. Sometimes. And I’ve been looking for an instrument to compose music for.”

“ _Sick_ ,” Josh says, sincerely. He’s been around Tyler for all of five minutes and he’s finding half a dozen reasons to be more obsessed with him. He writes music? That’s, like, awesome, and so unexpected. “You don’t look like the kind of guy who writes music.”

Tyler falters. He withdraws his hand from the ukulele and his face morphs into that strange, blank look that Josh recognizes from the hallway. “I don’t?”

“Not really. No offense. I didn’t know guys on the basketball team could _write_.”

“Didn’t you?” Tyler says coolly.

Josh suddenly realizes that he has made a grievous mistake. His palms are sweating, and he wipes them on his black dress pants but it doesn’t help. He’s trying to think of where exactly he went wrong and what exactly he could say to fix it, but his mind is suddenly blank like an eraser-swept chalkboard.

“I actually can’t afford this,” Tyler says. He shoves his hands back into his pockets. “Thanks for your help though.”

He leaves the acoustic room and lets the door slam harder than it should behind him. The guitars rattle in their perches a little. Josh leans forward and rests his forehead against the cool, paneled wall.

That went well.

#

Back in his room, Tyler pulls the drapes closed against as much sunlight as he can. He delicately puts his notebook of tentative songs back into his closet where it will begin to collect dust. With nothing else to do, he stops by his brother’s room and asks if he wants to go out back and shoot hoops. They play for hours until both of them are sweating and sunburned and Zack begs for mercy.

Tyler plays into the night, making five hundred baskets and then another five hundred baskets until every limb aches and he spies his mom watching him front the kitchen window looking concerned. He ignores her, taking out his frustrations on the court.

Josh doesn’t even matter. He’s nobody. Just because he has dreams about the kid sometimes (frightening and beautiful and poignant dreams), that doesn't mean that they're friends. Tyler shouldn’t feel angry or _hurt_. He sinks another free throw, forearm cramping. He ignores the pain.

 _This_ is what he’s good for. This is what people expect of him. There’s nothing wrong with the status quo. Tyler doesn’t need to change himself (and doesn’t see the irony in refusing to change to _who he really is_ ). He passes on eating dinner and crawls into bed without even showering, fouling his sheets with sweat and he doesn’t even care. He doesn’t care that he reeks and that his bed is now filthy and that it’s only eight on a Saturday night.

He pulls the blankets over his head and blocks out the world.


	5. Que Sera and All That Jazz

Tyler wakes up to the sound of his bedroom door being opened. Falling asleep so early in the evening has left him feeling faintly disoriented, like when he was a child and he would fall asleep on the couch but his parents would carry him to bed. His alarm clock hasn’t gone off yet, so he assumes that it must be very late or very early; however when he cracks his eyes open and glances at the clock, the glowing red LED lights aren’t there. It is dark and blank.

Footsteps from near the door. Tyler looks up and sees _himself_ standing there.

“What are you doing in my bed?” Blurryface asks. His dark clothes blend into the darkness of the room until just his face stands out in stark contrast via the light leaking in through the door. He’s worse than any monster hiding in a closet or under a bed, but he’s looking at Tyler like _he’s_ the cretin. “You don’t belong here.”

“This is my bed,” Tyler says weakly.

Blurry lunges and crawls onto the bed, and Tyler finds he can’t move. He’s been restrained, wrists tied to the headboard with plastic strings that might make a tinny sound if plucked. Blurry is a distinct, heavy weight slinking on top of him. He wraps his hands around Tyler’s neck and squeezes, squeezes, squeezes…

And then Tyler is walking through the wasteland. Josh is staring at him, concerned. Josh has an open face that seems to show whatever he’s feeling. Tyler thinks that’s a nice quality to have— and a dangerous one.

“Are you alright?” the other boy asks.

“Yeah,” Tyler says. “I was just—nothing. I’m crazy, that’s all.”

Josh smiles, and for a moment Tyler forgets about their interaction at Guitar Center. This attractive, confident boy in his dreams is a far cry from the offensive, shy boy in his art class. If they didn’t have the same face, he might not even believe they were the same person.

The moment passes, and Tyler remembers everything.

He scowls. Why does this boy have to invade his dreams? “I don’t want you to be here,” he says to Josh. “Go away now.”

Tyler doesn’t manage to turn away before seeing the hurt expression on Josh’s face. His characteristic happy squint-and-smile are wiped away and Tyler can see a glimmer underneath of a deeply unhappy person. Tyler turns away anyway. It’s ridiculous to feel bad about offending a _dream person_.

Maybe it’s just as ridiculous to be angry at a dream person for what they did in real life, but Tyler isn’t interested in making sense. He’s interested in putting as much distance between himself and dream Joshua Dun as possible. Scratch that—he wants distance as possible between himself and _every version_ of Joshua Dun.

“You-you want me to go?” Josh repeats.

“Did I stutter?” Tyler asks coolly. He begins to head in the direction of the trees. His clothes are stiff with dried saltwater from their romp in the sea. It’s a little uncomfortable which impedes his apathy. For a moment there’s just the sound of his own footsteps, and he can almost imagine Josh in his mind’s eyes: lost looking, sad, staring after him like a kicked dog.

Footsteps start behind him, jogging, up until Josh is even with him. “Look. You don’t want me here—that’s okay, I guess. But we’re headed in the same direction. We don’t have to talk, but I’m walking this way. We might as well walk together.”

“Fine,” Tyler says, begrudgingly. “But, no talking. I don’t want to talk to you.”

“That’s fair,” Josh mumbles, sounding like it was anything _but_ fair. He shoves his hands into the pockets on his white basketball shorts and shuffles along, moping. Tyler ignores him.

Altogether, it’s the longest, most uncomfortable dream Tyler’s ever had—and considering his last few dreams have consisted of being strangled and getting his eyeholes fingered by Blurry, _that’s_ saying something.

Tyler wakes up feeling no better than he did when he crawled to bed the night before. In fact, he feels a little worse. _Tense._ He wants nothing more than to write out his feelings, but he refuses to let himself go to the notebook in his closet. Tyler isn’t in the mood to create. He doesn’t come out of his room for the entire morning, and nobody bothers him because he’s seventeen and allowed to do as he pleases—mostly.

Instead, he looks up ukulele covers of pop songs on YouTube, pining. _Why_ did Josh Dun have to work at Guitar Center? Every other store in the strip mall was packed to the gills with nice strangers who wouldn’t judge Tyler—who didn’t know him enough _to_ judge him.

Suddenly, Tyler is angry. What right does Josh Dun have to make Tyler feel bad about both being a basketball player and a lyricist? He doesn’t have the right. Not at all. Tyler rolls out of bed. He’s still dressed in his clothes from yesterday, so he just swaps shirts for an unwrinkled one hanging in his closet. On his way out, he grabs the money he has saved up from the bottom drawer of his desk.

He’s going to get that ukulele.

#

In the end, he’s a coward. He peers through the window and can spot Josh’s figure stocking a shelf with microphone shields. It’s noon, so he hopes that sooner or later Josh’s shift will end or he’ll go on his lunch break. Tyler waits in his car for an hour and a half, bringing up YouTube videos on his phone to entertain himself. The time flies. Really.

When he spots Josh’s figure headed out of the shop and for the Taco Bell across the street, Tyler makes his move.

He bursts into the store, the bell above the door ringing violently. He chooses the prettiest and most expensive ukulele on the wall, snags a book titled UKULELE: BEGINNER’S EDITION, and nearly sprints to the register to check out. The guy behind the counter is decked out in tattoos with a nametag reading: JACK.

“Did you find everything—”

“Yes, please I’m in a hurry.”

“Of course you are,” Jack says blankly. “Do you want a warranty? A case?”

“Neither, thanks.” Tyler practically throws his money across the counter, tucks the ukulele and book under his arm, and sprints back to his car. His heart is pounding and he’s breathing hard, but he’s grinning. Avoiding Josh was kind of thrilling. If only he could do that in his dreams.

Tyler goes home and spends the rest of the day picking through the first few sections of the beginners guide while lounging on his bed, plucking at the ukulele and smiling blissfully at the ceiling.

#

Just before the store closes at the end of the evening, Josh has to put away an acoustic that someone had sat aside and promised to come back for but never returned to buy (an act that is surprisingly common, especially if a customer feels too pressured to purchase). He enters the cool oasis of the acoustic room and spots the empty spot for the guitar straightaway.

Turning back to the door, he sees the empty ukulele spot. There might as well have been an axe-wielding maniac standing there for the way Josh’s heart clenched in horror.

There’s absolutely no evidence that Tyler Joseph is responsible.

But deep down, he _knows_.

He puts his hands in his hair, feeling on the verge of exploding, and pulls hard. What had he _done_? What warranted such treatment? Tyler’s sudden apathy yesterday had bothered Josh deeply for the rest of the day, even bleeding over into his dreams. As far as Josh could see, he had done nothing except speak a few sentences to the kid.

The empty spot where the ukulele should be is _glaring_ at him. It reminds him that tomorrow he’ll have to face Tyler Joseph at school. He’ll have to face him knowing that the other boy hated him. He’ll have to face him knowing that he’d gravely offended him. Josh would rather be _dead_ than see Tyler Joseph hate him the way he did last night in Josh’s dream.

Josh begins to panic. It’s getting hard to breathe. How has he never noticed how _small_ the acoustic room is? He tries the door but it’s locked now. His coworker has left him in the store. They’ve closed up and Jack has gone home and Josh is going to be stuck there overnight now because his family will forget all about him.

 _Go away_ , Tyler’s voice echoes in his mind. _I don’t want you to be here._

Nobody wants Josh around. Josh doesn’t even want himself around.

His legs go weak and he has to sit on the floor. There’s something around his neck strangling him, but no matter how he scratches at it, he can’t find it to free his breath. His chest aches, the pain traveling up his throat and down his arms. Blackness oozes in from the edges of his vision because of the heavy breaths he’s trying to take. The door clicks open and his coworker is standing there, staring down at him in terror.

“Josh?” Jack asks. “What’s wrong?”

But Josh is already fainting, and the next time he awakes, Jack has dragged him out to the store floor and there’s an ambulance on the way.

“I thought you were _dying_ ,” Jack says, wringing his hands. Josh’s mom is there. She must have been outside waiting in the parking lot, and the arrival of the ambulance has stirred her from her car and into the store. Josh can see that she’s crying.

“He has panic attacks,” his mother tells the paramedics, but Josh can’t speak to try to deny it.

They load him into the ambulance, and his mom can’t even ride with him. He feels like a child for even wanting her to. When the doctor tells him in the emergency room that he’s had a panic attack and gives him medicine to relax, Josh feels (distantly, through the muddling of the drugs) that he’s more embarrassed than he’s ever been in his entire life. He’s at the ER until two in the morning when they finally release him with a temporary prescription to some strong anti-anxiety meds until his doctor’s appointment on Wednesday.

The moment that he’s home, he collapses into bed.

And wakes up in the forest. It is the antithesis of the wasteland. The air is thick and humid, fragrant with the scent of soil and foliage. Under his feet is dark, warm dirt, much more forgiving than the hard earth of the desert. When he looks upward, all he can see are the trees stretching into the sky, trunks thick with flaking bark and crawling vines.

Everything seems misty, like a fine layer of fog has drifted down and settled over his vision.

Josh takes a deep breath. The tightness in his chest is gone. The turmoil of real life has not followed him into his dream. He wishes he could sleep forever; it seems like this is the only place where he can resemble the person he wants most to be.

He begins to walk, shifting the bow he’s holding (has he always had the bow? He can’t be sure) to his non-dominant hand. Across his chest is a broad leather strap, and he feels the shift of arrows in the quiver on his back. He’s never shot an arrow in his life before, but when he reaches back to pull one free, it’s a smooth, comfortable feeling. Muscle memory. Nice. The quivers are tan feathers. When he runs his finger over the tip, he can feel how sharp it is. He restores it to its perch on his back and continues walking.

The whole forest has a _buzz_. Through the thick trees, he doesn’t know which direction he’s going, but he can _feel_ that he’s on the way to the Treehouse. It’s like the draw of a magnet to iron, a humming in his bones that lures him deeper in the trees.

The deeper he walks, the darker it gets. The canopy above him is so thick that little sun makes it through. Josh starts to think he sees figures in the trees peering around tree trunks and creeping through the underbrush.

At last, the trees start to thin and the sunlight returns. Sweat is dripping from his hair, down his neck and bare chest (God he really needs a shirt). He adjusts his grip on the bow because _yes_ there are definitely things following him. In the sunlight, they don’t have nearly so much cover.

They seem to be getting bolder.

Josh knows that if he can just make it to the Treehouse, everything will be alright. Then it is in sight: a massive structure standing taller than anything else in the forest. The tree that holds the Treehouse is easily wider than the three thickest trees he’s seen morphed together, and it has multiple levels: one house, two houses, three, four, five until he can’t see them anymore. The ladder leading down is rope and worn, climbed a hundred times.

It fucking _glows_. It’s the source of all the mist. It’s exactly what he’s been marching and looking for this whole time. It’s like coming home to a comfortable bed after a twelve-hour shift, it’s like seeing Tyler Joseph after winter holidays, it’s like every other metaphor where _exactly what you need_ to quench your desires is right in front of you.

There is the rapid rustling of underbrush. The creature that sprints forth has the height and shape of a human but is _blurry_ with grayed skin. It looks like a charcoal drawing that someone has licked their thumb and smudged away.

Josh’s body requires no higher thinking to rapidly pull an arrow from the quiver. He pulls the bow into place, nocks an arrow, and lets it fly. It hits the creature in the throat and it collapses, giving an unnaturally deep bellow. No blood comes from the wound but a thin black smoke that drifts away. It dissolves into nothing, and Josh has just enough time to turn and see three more of the shadow creatures coming from the woods behind him, blurry hands clutching long, curved blades made of darkness.

Three arrows fly and they fall one-by-one.

For a moment there is silence. Then a dozen figures emerge, stepping out from behind trees and crawling from beneath brush. Heart in his throat, Josh slowly reaches back to nock another arrow.

They lunge as he lets it loose. One falls. The next arrow takes down two at once, but they’re closing in and no matter how quickly he can shoot, there’s just too many.

He rips another arrow from the quiver—but it isn’t an arrow. It’s a drumstick.

He reaches back. There are no more arrows, just the other drumstick. The shadow creatures are upon him, so he reacts on instinct. He strikes out as hard as he can like he might hit the snare or the ride cymbal when he’s at the store nearly all alone and no customers are there to complain. One falls, smoke leaking from its neck which Josh has beaten with the stick.

But there are just too many of them. Josh can’t fight them all.

He’s going to lose.

He’s going to _die_.

Saddest of all, he isn’t going to make it to the Treehouse.

They fall on him, and despite looking like smoke and smudges and shadows, their claws and knives _hurt_. He turns to keep the Treehouse in his sight. It’s not a bad vision to die to.

“ _Josh!_ ”

Is that Tyler Joseph?

No, it’s his mother.

“Josh, your alarm is going off.”

His eyes crack open. His mother is standing over him still in her pajamas. She’s peering at him and even through the haze of sleep and drugs he can tell that she is incredibly worried. Her laugh lines seem to have become frown lines overnight, and she looks like she hasn’t slept a wink.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, reaching out to shut off his alarm.

“You’re staying home from school today. I’m going to call the doctor and see if I can’t move your appointment up.”

“Gotta go to school.”

“No. Just go back to sleep, Joshua. I’m going to leave your pills by your bed while your father and I are at work. If you need anything—anything Joshua, I’m serious—just call us.”

Josh lies there in a hazy fog. His limbs feel heavy. Whatever they gave him at the hospital is struggling to wear off. The little bottle of pills beside him are to be taken on a need-only basis if he feels or is at risk of feeling anxious, but right now he isn’t feeling anything at all.

An unknown amount of time passes while Josh doesn’t move a muscle, slipping in and out of sleep, and slowly coming down from his drugs. He’s suddenly aware that the shadows cast by the sun have moved and hours have passed without him noticing.

He sits up.

He’s late for school.

Josh rolls out of bed and tugs on the uniform he wore Friday. It takes him five full minutes to figure out that he’s trying to put both feet into the same pant leg. He can’t remember if he’s done his homework. Did he get homework on Friday? He’s not sure, but his bag is obviously untouched, slumped by the door where he dropped it after the miserable conversation with his mother Friday evening. He throws it over his shoulder and barely remembers to snag the pills off of his nightstand and shove them into one of the bag’s pockets before bounding out the door.

Walking to school in the middle of the day is a strange sensation. It’s strange not to see a pack of students standing around waiting for the first bell. This whole day feels strange and alien, but Josh isn’t concerned about it. It isn’t until he’s putting his books in his locker that he remembers his mother called him out from school today.

He doesn’t care. There seems to be no outcome of the situation that could end badly or frighten him or make him feel anxious. Whatever’s meant to happen will happen. Que sera, and all that jazz.

He’s heading to pre-calculus when the bell rings signaling pre-calculus is over. Josh changes directions entirely, enjoying the way his head swims. No problem. He can get his assignments anytime. Josh can go with the flow. Today, Josh isn’t feeling _any_ of his usual panic or anxiety when the rest of the student body presses against him. Today, Josh feels like the person he is when he dreams, and he _likes_ that person.

These pills are, like, the best thing ever.

He’s one of the last students to make it to art, and Miss Teague gives him a smile and a wink. He smiles back, though the muscles in his face feel strange and he isn't sure if he's doing it right.

Josh sits in his usual seat and carefully tears the mostly-complete gas mask from his sketchbook to be turned in.

When Teague does rollcall, she sees that Josh hasn’t reported to his first two classes of the day. She shrugs it off—it must have been some mistake.

Across the room is Tyler Joseph. His hair is sticking up wildly in every direction like he hasn’t combed it all weekend. Begrudgingly, Josh admits that it’s a good look on him. Do they call that bedhead? _Sex hair_? That thought should be embarrassing, he acknowledges dimly, but it isn’t. Tyler is reading a book, but from this distance, Josh can’t make out the title or even the picture on the cover.

Miss Teague perches herself on her desk, crossing her ankles demurely. The roar of the class begins to die down at the sight of her waiting to speak. Josh feels a dim stir of anticipation, smothered down deep. He wants to look over at Tyler, but that might give away their ruse, and he’d promised Teague that he wouldn’t tell anyone that she’d given him special treatment.

“Quiet down, everyone. We’re starting something new. Now that you each have some pieces in your portfolio and I’m beginning to understand your particular style of art, I thought we’d shake things up a bit.” She rests her hand on a stack of clean canvases resting beside her on the desk. “Leah—are you paying attention? Good—now we’re going to be teaming up in duos. Each pair will get a pre-stretched canvas, but this is no _ordinary_ canvas!”

The class groans at her theatrical enthusiasm. She holds up one of the canvases, and bisecting it diagonally from the top left to the bottom right corner is a thin strip of masking tape. “You’ll each be working on the same piece, on the same canvas, taking one half. Your task is to merge your styles—now that doesn’t mean one of you gets to paint and the other has to slave away trying to copy. I want to see genuine collaboration. When your paintings are finished, we will remove the masking tape and appreciate the art as one piece.

“I’ve taken the dubious pleasure of dividing you into partners already. Yes, yes—no need to thank me so _vocally_.” She glares at the room until the groans die down. “I’ll be reading off your names. This will be an overarching project due the final day of the semester, but that doesn’t mean you should slack off until the night before.” She begins to call names.

 _Dun and Joseph_ are the third group to be called. Josh allows his head to turn and catch sight of his partner.

Tyler Joseph looks like someone has just given him a death sentence. His full lips are pressed tightly together and his face is turning red like he’s trying not to scream. Josh feels an odd stirring of sadness and vindication. When Tyler turns to look—more like _glare_ —at him, Josh waves. His partner rolls his eyes to the ceiling as if seeking help from a higher power.

“You can take the rest of the period to make _serious plans_ for your project with your partner, and if I catch you talking about anything else, you’ll spend the rest of the period explaining it to the dean. Understood? When you’re ready, come and grab a canvas.”

The room erupts into the sound of chairs scraping across the floor as students move to be by their partners. Tyler makes literally no move to come closer to Josh, but the other boy doesn’t mind. He picks up his books and walks to the desk beside him where he drops them loudly. Tyler doesn’t even flinch. Then Josh makes the trek up to Miss Teague to grab their canvas.

He chooses one that has been divided by masking tape directly down the center. Teague gives him a questioning smile, and Josh gives her the thumbs up. She beams.

Josh places the canvas in front of Tyler and scoots his chair closer, but not closer than is socially acceptable. He knows that he needs to say something, to address the tension between them as a result of their interaction at Guitar Center over the weekend. Usually, when Josh has to say something important, he fucks it up nice and proper, but this time the words just…come.

“Look, I’m sorry for what I said on Saturday. I didn’t mean to offend you. I have serious anxiety issues, and sometimes that means the things I want to say come out wrong,” Josh says as straightforwardly as he can. Tyler glances at him, eyebrows furrowed. He looks shocked.

“Let’s just focus on the project,” Tyler mutters. “I’m just as thrilled about us being partners as you are.”

Josh knows the drugs are nearly gone now because that _hurt_.

“Fine,” he says.

“We need to find a subject to paint.”

“A treehouse,” Josh says, matter-of-factly, like it’s the only subject in the world that they _could_ paint. He’s pushing his luck combining his dreams with reality, especially when Tyler finding out that Josh dreams about him is potentially the worst thing that could ever happen to him. Like, ever.

The change that creeps over Tyler is slow but consuming. His back straightens and his shoulders tighten. His eyebrows draw low over his dark eyes with suspicion. He glances around as if someone might have heard the very word treehouse. The reaction is so completely confusing that Josh has _no_ idea what to make of it.

He leans in, closer to Josh than he’s ever been before. It makes Josh’s heart jump.

“ _Why did you say that?_ ”

“Say what?” Josh asks.

“Treehouse. Why did you say treehouse? Why do you want to paint one of those?”

“I don’t know,” Josh lies. “Stupid idea. What do _you_ want to paint?”

Tyler’s stare is unreadable, but it makes Josh uncomfortable. He wipes his hands off on his dress slacks and thinks of the pills in his locker, longing to have taken one before art. How was he going to deal with this for the rest of the semester? Asking for Tyler as his partner had been so stupid.

“A treehouse is fine,” Tyler says a little stiffly.

Across the room, almost completely masked by the raucous sound of students conversing all over the room, there is a knock on the classroom door. Josh’s anxious mind picks it out of all the noise like a clear bell rang in silence and his head whirs to look at who might be entering.

It’s a police officer. Miss Teague’s eyebrows disappear into her hairline. None of the other students have noticed except for Tyler. The two boys share a look, differences forgotten with the promise of potential drama. Josh’s stomach sinks when the officer and Teague talk briefly and the redhead turns to point _right at him_.

The officer motions for Josh to get up and follow him.

Josh’s mouth feels like it’s full of cotton. He can’t even turn to look at Tyler.

“Got to go,” he mumbles, gathering his stuff. Clumsy, he knocks his items to the floor and has to pick them up red-faced.

“Good luck with…that—” Tyler says, eyes wide with bewilderment, waving a hand in the general direction of the classroom door. Josh says something that might be gracious but probably wasn’t even English.

He heads out into the hallway.


	6. Prayers and Privacy

Josh is grounded. _For his own safety._

For forty-five minutes, he was considered missing and a danger to himself. He managed to avoid his mother’s wrath by explaining that when he left the house, he genuinely hadn’t remembered that his mother had called him out from school. _It’s like the memory just wasn’t there, Mom,_ he said after the police officer had asked him questions and let him go home with her.

Apparently, the benzodiazepines Josh is on for his anxiety are very powerful and can cause symptoms like impaired judgment and memory loss. His mother wasn’t angry after he explained, just afraid. He could tell she was afraid by the way her knuckles were white on the steering wheel the whole drive home and the way her lips quivered every now and then.

Making his mother afraid made him miserable. He almost preferred that she be angry at him.

“But the medicine works really well,” he said on the way back home, trying to soothe the ache his words might have caused her. “I didn’t feel anxious at all.”

She acted like she didn’t even hear him. When they made it to the house, this time their roles were reversed. His mother spent the next thirty minutes out in the car with her head in her hands while Josh peered through the kitchen blinds at her, wishing that he could crawl into a hole and erase his existence.

He sprinted to his room when he saw the car door open through the drapes—it’s one thing to know his mom is crying out in the car but a whole different thing having to face it in person. Josh doesn’t think he’s strong enough for that.

He takes another one of his pills before checking his phone, because _anxious_ is only the tiniest fraction of what he’s feeling, and if there’s any way the pills can help, he wants to put them to use.

His cellphone, forgotten this morning in his rush out the door, is on the desk in his bedroom. There are eleven missed calls. Ten are from his mother. When he hadn’t picked up his phone earlier that afternoon, she’d left work and came home to an empty house. She immediately had called the police to let them know that her drugged up son might be wandering the streets in southern Columbus. Luckily they had checked his work and his school before calling in the cavalry and sending out a fucking Amber-Alert or something.

The last missed call is the cherry on top of his perfect day. It’s his work telling him that there’s some legal matters that need to be taken care of before Josh can return to work, since his coworker had to call the ambulance for him while he was on duty and on the property. Until then, they’ll have someone else covering his shifts.

Josh sits on his bed and cries. There’s only one acceptable place for a boy of his age to cry, and that’s alone in his room. It’d be better if the door were locked—but that involves getting up and _locking_ it, which requires more energy than Josh is willing to expend. For a long time, his tears are out of pity for himself. Eventually, they turn to angry tears.

This anxiety is ruining his life. Why is he plagued with this? What has he done to deserve this? He has always thought of himself as a good person. He doesn’t pick on his younger siblings, he rides his bike in the direction of traffic like people always said to, he attends church on Easter and Christmas and most Sundays in between when he doesn’t have to work, and he even _prays_ (though it has been awhile).

Why would God do this to him?

He decides that he’s desperate enough to try praying again. Josh crawls out of bed and kneels on the floor like he used to when he was a child and his mother would say her prayers with him before tucking him in. Once there, he isn’t sure what to say. It’s not exactly a conversation one can pick up from where he left off. In the end, he just ends up saying the same word in his mind again and again and again.

_Please. Please. Please._

Please make this stop.

Please help him.

Please help his family.

Please make things go right.

He falls asleep kneeling and doesn’t dream. He wakes up to his mother opening his bedroom door. His limbs feel heavy and in pain from the awkward position but he turns his head. Even when he’s looking at his mother, he isn’t positive that his eyes are open.

“Yeah?” He asks, unsure if his mouth is working or if he just thinks it’s working. He feels like he might still be sleeping.

“Dinner’s done, baby. Want to eat in your room?”

“Yes please,” he slurs. He blinks and his mother has her hands on his shoulders, helping him up and to his desk where there’s a plate. Spaghetti. Nice. “Thanks. You’re so fast.”

“I’m going to leave your door open. What were you doing on the floor?” She asks him.

“Praying,” he says, twirling his fork with spaghetti. Now that he’s sitting up and can smell the food, his head feels a little clearer. Everything seems dampened, though—like there’s a sheet pulled over his head and it’s through the sheet that he has to view the world now. He feels detached, like a spectator.

“Oh. That’s—nice. Just—call out if you need something. Ashley is going to stay home from school with you tomorrow. I couldn’t move your appointment up any sooner than Wednesday, but I don’t want you to go to school until then.”

“Okay,” Josh says. Through the whole conversation, he’s been staring at the calendar that hangs above his desk, because it’s easier to look anywhere else than to look at his mother and see what she might be feeling. “I’m sorry.”

“What for?” She asks.

“Everything,” Josh says, taking another mouthful of spaghetti.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for. None of this is your fault. Just take it easy.”

“Okay.”

His mom leaves. He no longer sees her shadow in the periphery of his vision.

The spaghetti is great because his mom’s like, the best cook ever. She could open her own restaurant and Josh would spend all his saved up money just to eat there for all three meals and two snacks a day for the rest of his life. He doesn’t think he’s ever told her that before and decides that maybe he should. On his way to take his empty plate into the kitchen, he overhears his parents talking in the living room. Talking about him.

“—safe to leave Ashley home with him?” His father asks.

“What are you saying? This is Josh. He’s anxious, not violent. Josh can’t even kill spiders.”

His father’s sigh is heavy and he sounds thirty years older than he is. “I know. It’s the medicine. I worry—”

Josh decides that he’ll tell his mother how good her cooking is on another night. He ghosts past the living room doorway and deposits the plate in the sink, loud enough so as to alert his family to his presence. When he passes the living room again, the television is on and his parents are quiet.

It’s barely seven at night, and while Josh feels calm, he doesn’t feel tired. He decides to sketch. There’s something about the rhythm and sound of pencil on paper that gives him a release, almost as much as he might find behind a drum set. He’s sure that his homework is piling up, but it doesn’t seem urgent. It will always be there. It could be useful to have some versions of a treehouse (and some samples of his art) for Tyler to look over whenever Josh goes back to school.

There’s only one problem: his sketchbook isn’t in his bag.

#

Across town, Tyler Joseph has closed and locked his bedroom door. Not because what he’s doing is _dirty_ , but because he does feel a little guilty about it. On his bed is Josh Dun’s sketchbook, which the older boy had left behind after his hasty retreat from art class earlier that day.

To be fair, Tyler had originally taken it only with the purpose of giving it back to Josh during the next art period. That is, if Josh didn’t end up in prison for whatever he did to warrant a police escort from class. When he’d gotten home from school, Tyler had put the sketchbook on his desk, where it seemed to attract his eyes multiple times throughout the night. Why had he brought it home in the first place? Why hadn’t he left it in his locker?

Deep down, Tyler knows why. It’s because he’s a curious guy, and it is only natural to want to look at the art work of his art project partner. If he happens to learn more about Josh—like what that kid’s _deal_ was—that will just be a bonus.

He decides to look at the pictures from backwards to forwards, to start with the most recent. Torn from the book but held loosely in place between other pages is the gas mask. Tyler has seen it before, but seeing it again still startles him. It could almost be taken _exactly_ from Tyler’s dream about the Gasmen. That, combined with Josh’s comment earlier today about the treehouse makes Tyler feel strange, like there’s an itching at the back of his brain. Josh. Gas masks. Treehouses. Dreams. _So_ weird.

He gently turns the page over to look at the previous piece. It’s the self-portrait assignment that they’d completed the week before, only it doesn’t look anything like Josh. It’s cartoonish, of an alien with a fluffing of red hair curled artfully into a Mohawk, big, blank eyes acting like dark holes. It looks like the alien is playing the drums in space, and it makes Tyler smile briefly.

Tyler turns the page, enjoying the feeling of thick, high-quality paper under his fingertips. The next picture is very dark and doesn’t look like it was for an assignment at all. It’s a pointillism of a man in a cage. He vaguely resembles Josh—real life Josh, with the anxious mouth and sad eyes.

 Tyler doesn’t like it and turns the page.

The next piece startles him—because it’s _him_. Josh drew a picture of _him_ , in colored pencil. Tyler has no idea when the inspiration was found. As far as he can tell, he is slumped over, chin resting on his hand, expression vacant. It’s decent. Actually, kind of good. Josh is much better with colored pencils than he is working in black and white. Tyler can’t help but feel confused, though. The picture is dating from weeks before, back when he’d never even spoken to Josh.

Unsure what to make of the drawing, Tyler keeps flipping. The further back he goes, the happier and more colorful the pictures become. There are several of a younger girl with dark hair who shares a familial resemblance. There are a lot of nature scenes too, and ones of outer space.

It’s clear that Josh used to be a very happy person, but flipping like a moving picture book from the front of the sketchbook to the back shows the gentle bleeding of color that comes with growing apathy and cynicism. Josh has _demons_. Tyler knows all about those.

At the front of the book, on the inside cover, is a scrawled message. Josh’s handwriting is small, curvy, and neat.

Property of Joshua W. Dun

And scrawled beneath that is an address and a cellphone number.

Jackpot. He enters the number into his phone and sends a text.

**Is this Josh? _(Sent 7:03 PM)_**

The message goes unanswered for twenty minutes, long enough for Tyler to doubt the validity of the number inside the cover. Obviously, it’s old. Obviously, it doesn’t even belong to Josh anymore. If someone does respond, it will just be to tell Tyler that there’s no one by Josh with that number and to please fuck off.

When his phone buzzes, Tyler nearly drops it in his haste to open it.

**yes. who’s this? _(Received 7:27 PM)_**

Tyler’s heart is in his throat. _Why_ is his heart pounding so hard? He types out a reply and reads it a dozen times before pressing send. He opens the sketchbook while he waits and flips through the pictures, pausing on the one of himself, pausing on the one of the man in the cage.

**Tyler Joseph, from art class. I wanted to let you know that you dropped your sketchbook today and I picked it up. Found your number on the inside. Hope you don’t mind. _(Sent 7:30 PM)_**

This time, the reply is almost instantaneous.

**don’t mind. thanks for grabbing it. did you look through it? _(Received 7:31 PM)_**

 

Tyler exhales, twiddling his thumbs over the phone keyboard, unsure of how to proceed. He could totally lie to Josh, but odds are that Josh already _knows_. What kind of person could open another person’s private property and stop at the first page? A saint? Well, Tyler isn’t one of those.

**Yeah, some of it. You’re a sick artist _(Sent 7:35 PM)_**

**that was private. _(Received 7:38 PM)_**

**I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have looked _(Sent 7:39 PM)_**

**yeah. it’s fine i guess. _(Received 7:42 PM)_**

**I really am sorry. _(Sent 7:43 PM)_**

**I’ll give you the book back tomorrow. _(Sent 7:45 PM)_**

**can’t. i won’t be at school _(Received 7:45 PM)_**

**In jail? That’s sick. _(Sent 7:49)_**

**sort of. house arrest. i’m sick _(Received 7:52)_**

**What’s wrong with you? _(Sent 7:55)_**

**When will you be back? We’re supposed to work on the project this whole week. _(Sent 8:05)_**

**it’s not really your business what’s wrong. i won’t be back tmrw or wed. after that it depends _(Received 8:09)_**

**Sorry. I didn’t mean to invade your privacy or whatever. _(Sent 8:10)_**

**it’s fine, you seem to be good at that. _(Received 8:15)_**

**invading my privacy that is. _(Received 8:15 PM)_**

**i meant that to be funny btw. not mad. maybe you can come over and work on the project at my place. _(Received 8:18 PM)_**

**You had me sweating for a sec. You’re not contagious are you? _(Sent 8:20 PM)_**

**no. not contagious. dangerous. _(Sent 8:21 PM)_**

Tyler isn’t sure what to make of that. He spends a long time reclining on his bed, thinking over the conversation and wondering how to respond. Josh doesn’t seem so bad. Tyler would like to think he’s a forgiving guy—a guy who can admit his own mistakes, too. Maybe a little bit of both is needed now.

**What day is good for you? _(Sent 8:58 PM)_**


	7. 40 Years of Wandering the Desert

Tyler had thought that the forest wouldn’t be as hot as the wasteland, but he can see now that the humidity makes up for the lack of direct sunlight. He’s been dreaming for hours now, and his shirt is damp and skin slick with sweat, eyes stinging with the salt of it when it drips down over his brow. If he could reach out to wipe it away from his face he would, but he can’t.

He’s a little busy climbing the tallest tree he’s ever seen.

He’s actually a really good climber, like, _really_ good. It used to get him in trouble when he was a child, but he can’t help the almost obsessive need to climb and conquer taller structures. He’s been captivated ever since he first heard the story of the Tower of Babylon, of the people who were arrogant enough to try to build a tower to reach God in Heaven. Tyler thinks that maybe he can understand why they would try: sometimes he felt so _far_ from God that he’d do anything to feel a little closer.

Not to mention, there is something about distancing himself from the Earth that is appealing. It’s a surreal feeling to be above all that he could see, thrilling and almost frightening.

His desire to climb has never waned, but it has been repressed for the sake of maturity; therefore, he is a little rusty. Luckily, this tree is the perfect climbing tree, dotted with thick branches that can hold his weight and smaller perches his hands can nest in to pull himself up.

After an indeterminable amount of time (which feels like _forever_ ), Tyler’s arms and legs are beginning to burn with the strain of climbing. Climber or not, there’s no way he can keep up this pace forever. Above him, the tree twists and Tyler decides that he will rest when he gets there, hoisting himself up onto the thickest branch yet.

Josh Dun is sitting there, staring out over the forest.

“Oh, hey dude.”

“’sup.”

“Mind if I sit here?” Tyler asks.

“It’s all yours,” Josh says, shifting carefully to straddle the branch and scoot towards the trunk again. His face is hard with tension, like when Tyler tightened his ukulele’s C-string too much and nearly snapped it. “I’ll keep climbing. I’m sorry we ran into each other. I’ve been trying to keep ahead of you, but you climb fast.”

“It’s okay,” Tyler says. If he’s going to be kinder to Josh in the real world, it couldn’t be a bad thing to practice in his dreams. “I’m sorry about what I said. About not wanting you here.

Honestly, it’s nice having someone to talk to.”

Josh stops scooting. His face relaxes and he even smiles, though it’s a shadow of the smiles he used to give. “Bro, I know what you mean. I’ve been in this tree since before the sun came up, and it’s so boring. I talked to the stars for a while, but they didn’t talk back. It’s not the same, you know?”

Tyler shifts so he’s more stable on the branch, rough bark scraping his raw fingers. He clasps his hands together tight, trying to sooth the ache. Together, they stare out into the forest. They’ve climbed up taller than some of the trees, and it’s a surreal feeling to be up so high, with the tree tops below their swaying feet. Other trees still stand tall above them.

And deeper into the forest stands the Treehouse, visible over everything else.

“Why aren’t we headed towards it?” Tyler asks. Anything to break the silence.

“We’re going to take the bridge. Walking on the forest floor doesn’t work,” Josh says, frowning. He turns his torso and shows Tyler inch long slits along his chest and stomach that have knitted themselves together into angry, purple scar tissue. The sight of them makes Tyler rub at his arm, shuddering. “I’ve tried. It’s really well guarded.”

“Bridge?” Tyler asks because he really doesn’t want to know what Josh has faced on the forest floor. He looks up, but all he can see is the foliage directly above them, obscuring any further sights. “I don’t see a bridge.”

“You’ll see when we get there,” Josh says. “If we both make it. You might have to go alone.” Josh opens both hands, palms up, and Tyler sees that they are scraped and cut to bits, blood turning black in the cracks of his palms. “I don’t know how much further I can climb.”

“I don’t want to go without you.” Just the thought makes Tyler frown. Having Josh around makes him feel safer. The older boy always seems to know what to do and where to head next. Tyler is always just going with the flow. Has he really been climbing this tree for so long without even knowing _why_? God. He is such a dummy.

“We all have to go at it alone at some time,” Josh says, and Tyler’s frown deepens. He doesn’t like the sound of that at all. “Ready to keep climbing?”

The going seems to be slower now that Josh is with him, but Tyler doesn’t necessarily mind. For once, Tyler gets to watch out for _him_ , suggesting where he should place his hands to get the best leverage, even lending a hand when necessity calls for it. Josh’s hands are warm and slick with sweat and blood.

“I’m tired,” Josh pants when Tyler helps him up to the next branch, but the sight ahead seems to renew them. There’s a break in the trees. Almost nothing stands as high as they are right then, except for the Treehouse. It still towers above them, hundreds of feet into the air like a skyscraper of wood and greenery. It’s the first time Tyler has seen it so close and clear, and it takes his breath away. He tries to count the separate ‘houses’, but he can only see three. Lower trees obscure the rest.

Leading to the house third from the top is the bridge. It’s long and rope and _way_ too precarious for Tyler’s liking. He likes his bridge to have things like support beams and cable stays, or at least not ten-inch gaps between the wooden panels he’s supposed to walk across. This is starting to look like something out of an Indiana Jones movie. The bridge slopes gently downward towards the middle, where it seems to make an intermediate stop on the way to the Treehouse.

“It’s beautiful,” Tyler says.

“I know,” Josh replies, sounding sad. “I hope that I get to see it.”

“Why wouldn’t you? We’re almost there. You’re going to make it.”

Josh smiles, sadly. “ _I’m_ not going to make it. I can feel it. But you will. You’re supposed to.”

These words hang in the air between them. Josh slaps a hand against Tyler’s shoulder gently, inadvertently leaving a bloody palm print there. He motions for Tyler to keep climbing. The younger boy feels like he should say something— _knows_ he should say something—but he doesn’t. The moment passes and then it is too late to say anything.

They keep climbing. At one point, Josh’s foot slips and it’s nothing but his own feeble grip and Tyler’s hand that’s holding him up. Tyler wraps his skinny legs around the branch he’s on so that he can reach both hands down. Somehow, with his minuscule strength, he pulls Josh up until he regains his footing.

The both of them make it to the bridge at high noon. The tree they are in is second tallest in the whole forest, shorter only in comparison to the tree holding the Treehouse. The sheer magnitude of everything—the forest, the hundreds of trees spanning every visible direction, the height of the Treehouse—overwhelms him. The air feels thinner so high up, or maybe his breath’s just been taken away.

There is a platform made of flat planks of woods just wide enough for them to sit side by side on, dangling their legs over the side. Tyler sheds his t-shirt and starts to shred the hem into jagged strips so that he can wrap Josh’s hands. The residual sweat makes Josh hiss, and blood soaks through the white cloth.

“Thanks,” Josh says. He smiles, but it’s still not up to the bright wattage of his usual smile-and-squint. The other boy seems distant, distracted.

“No problem. Really. I’m just glad to be useful to you for once.”

Together they start crossing the bridge. Josh leads the way, and with his back to Tyler, the younger boy can see that there’s a quiver attached there by a wide leather strap, but the quiver is empty of arrows. Instead, there are two drumsticks.

The sight of them makes Tyler feel safe.

The bridge makes him feel _terrified._

It’s the rattiest, oldest looking bridge Tyler’s ever seen, much less had the misfortune to walk across. It sways under them with every step so that they both have to cling to the knotted rope handrail. The weave is rough on his raw hands, and he doesn’t want to imagine how it might have felt for Josh without the meager cloths between his torn skin and the rope. Every twenty steps or so they have to take an extra larger step to avoid a gaping hole in the planks beneath them. Tyler tries not to think about just how high up they are when he’s crossing those holes. He’s jumped _puddles_ bigger than those holes, but hundreds of feet in the air, they look as wide as gaping chasms.

“What’s in the Treehouse?” Tyler asks, trying to distract himself.

“I’m not sure. I’ve never made it there,” Josh says. “God maybe.”

“I’d settle for some air-conditioning and maybe a Baja Blast right about now.”

Josh groans and the sound makes Tyler’s stomach clench. “Bro. Don’t do this to me.”

Tyler laughs. It’s a high, borderline _giggly_ sound that he sometimes feels insecure about—it’s definitely not as masculine as his father’s or his brothers’ or Josh’s laugh, but when Josh glances over his shoulder and smiles (full blown beaming), Tyler decides not to feel so insecure about it.

They shuffle along, learning to shift and move together and not to make sudden movements or else suffer the dangerous swaying of the bridge. It was slow going in the hot sun, and Tyler could feel his skin tanning, skin tight with heat. He’s always been an easy tanner, but it looks like Josh isn’t as lucky. His skin is turning a light pink which will surely grow worse with time.

They walk for hours in silence, both of them focusing on the shifting bridge. By the time they reach the center of the bridge, Tyler is feeling faint. Thankfully, the gentle slope and natural give of the bridge towards the center has led them back down into the cool oasis of the tree tops and away from direct sunlight.

Tyler knows they’ve reached the center because it leads to another wooden platform with planks wide enough to sit on. He collapses into the shade, uncaring about the rough wood under his cheeks. Josh seems to agree with this sentiment, pausing on his descent only to vomit over the edge of the platform.

“This is the worst dream ever,” Tyler says through a mouth full of cotton.

“ _You’re_ telling _me_ ,” Josh mutters, panting. “We’re only halfway there. I don’t think I’m going to make it.”

Tyler leans up onto his elbows to get a better look at the other boy. Josh’s eyes seem sunken into his skull, his chest rising and falling rapidly. He holds up his hands and unwinds the strips of cloth, wincing when they’ve stuck to the dried blood. Tyler reaches into his pocket and pulls more strips free without being asked, holding them out. He tries to ignore how badly the other boy’s hands are shaking.

“Thanks,” Josh says as brightly as he can.

“No problem,” Tyler murmurs, rolling onto his side to prop himself up on his elbow to watch

Josh’s actions. “At least the sun isn’t directly overhead anymore.”

“True.”

“We’re definitely going to make it,” Tyler says, unsure whether he’s trying to encourage Josh or himself. “We’ve got a rhythm going. We’re in sync. It’s great.”

“Well, we aren’t going to make it if we lie here and waste the daylight.” He struggles to stand and then offers his hand out to Tyler. Tyler takes his hand but stands up on his own power. It looks like the effort of trying to help him up could very well knock Josh right off of his feet.

They move back out onto the bridge. There aren’t as many gaps here, and the ropes Tyler clutches as they move along aren’t as frayed. It makes Tyler think that maybe others have walked this same bridge, but maybe not as many have made it so far. He catches himself wondering how many have fallen before them.

But that doesn’t make any sense because this is a dream. No one has walked this path before him. He’s not even _really_ crossing this bridge. It’s in his mind. He’ll wake up no tanner than when he fell asleep, with no scrapes or burns on his palms. Sometimes, Tyler forgets that this is all a dream, that Josh isn’t real. It’s so realistic, and it’s always been too easy for him to get caught up in his own mind.

The Treehouse looms ahead of them. Now that they are so close, Tyler can feel that it _hums_. He thinks that it’s what gravity would sound like if gravity had a sound. The Treehouse is so large and so important, it’s mass so substantial that it’s drawing them in like an asteroid traveling too close to the sun. Tyler thinks he might burn up with it—can almost see and smell the smoke…

…but that isn’t in his mind. The third house from the top is the one that the bridge is leading to, and from its tiny windows is billowing smoke, gray and then black.

“That’s not good,” Josh says. He stops in his tracks and Tyler nearly runs into him. “There’s someone standing up there.”

“Who?” Tyler leans around him to get a look and the bridge sways dangerously. He rights himself and resigns himself to wait for Josh to reply.

“It’s _you_ ,” Josh says.

Even in the heat, Tyler gets goosebumps. His scalp prickles with horror, and the sweat on his body cools, making him shiver. He starts to back up against his will taking tiny, shuffling steps.

“No. No, no, no. We can’t go that way, Josh. We have to go back.”

“Why?” Josh asks, turning his head while maintaining his center of balance. “It’s just you.”

“ _That’s_ not me. _I’m_ me. That’s—Blurryface.”

“Blurryface?” Josh asks. He turns back around. Tyler can see his shoulders straighten as the older boy draws strength (where he’s getting the strength, Tyler has no clue, because it’s suddenly like a whole different person is standing with him). “I’m not afraid of him. I don’t think you should be either.”

“I _am_ afraid. I’m terrified. Please don’t make me go that way. _Please._ ”

“Then I’ll go talk to him myself. Stay here.” Josh begins to move forward again. When Tyler calls after him, Josh doesn’t even turn his head. Tyler makes a desperate noise in the back of his throat. Things had been going so well, but no dream with Blurry in it would stay a sunny one for long.

 Against his better judgment, Tyler begins to slink along again, keeping a good distance between them. Josh has gained ground even though the going is rougher here at the end of the bridge where it slopes upward. Tyler can just hear the sound of Josh’s frantic breaths over the creaking of the bridge and it worries him enough to pick up speed.

“Hey!” Josh calls out.

“Hello!” Blurry replies brightly. “Golly gee you guys came a long way. What a shame that it was all for nothing!”

“Nah,” Josh says just as cheerfully. He stops walking and rests his weight against the ropes as much as he dares. Josh knows nothing about Blurryface and how dangerous he is, but on some level, Tyler knows that he _does_ know. “The Treehouse is still standing. What’s happened to it? Do _you_ know?”

Blurry laughs that same, high-pitch giggle that Tyler had been fine with hearing from his own mouth just hours earlier. Now it makes him shudder. He comes to stand behind Josh who is giving Blurry plenty of room. Feeling brave, he peers around the older boy’s shoulder to catch a glimpse of his lookalike.

Blurryface has had the same idea, leaning dramatically in the same direction to wave at Tyler.

He’s lounging against the burning Treehouse, dressed in long black clothes from head to toe. Unlike them, the heat doesn’t seem to affect him, as there’s no glimmer or sheen of sweat on his brow and he seems entirely comfortable even in the stifling humidity.

Josh shifts so that Blurry doesn’t have Tyler in his sights anymore, and the relief and _safety_ he feels with Josh there is so poignant he nearly wants to cry.

“I don’t know what happened to it,” Blurryface says, glancing at the black smoke billowing from the window. His face is the picture of sadness and confusion, only his glittery brown eyes revealing his mockery. He holds up his hands and they are shaking theatrically. “But I smell gas on my hands… I think—I think I might have done something _bad._ ”

Those words sap the strength from Tyler’s legs. He collapses causing the bridge to sway dangerously. In his head, the words repeat themselves, the intonation and delivery exactly the way that Tyler said it when…

Josh draws a drumstick from the quiver on his back. “You’re upsetting my friend. Step aside and let us into the Treehouse. You don’t belong here.”

“ _I_ don’t belong here?” Blurry hisses. His playful demeanor melts away like fog burned off the ground by the morning sun. “Those are bold words for some kind of dreamsnatcher. Is there anywhere where _you_ belong, Joshua Dun? An outcast everywhere you go—at school, at home, at work. Your little search for succor, but you’ll never find it. You’ll be just like Moses wandering the desert for 40 years with no respite only to die within sight of the Promised Land. Give up now and accept your fate.”

“Moses was _sick_ ,” Josh says, voice stronger than he looks. Both he and Blurryface have begun to take steps closer to each other. When Tyler’s other half is standing only feet away, Josh lashes out, striking Blurry across the collar bone with a powerful blow of the drumstick. The strike of wood on flesh makes Tyler cringe where he cowers further away on the bridge.

Blurry hisses in pain, lunging. The bridge sways violently, and Tyler has to cling to the ropes to remain where he is. He can barely watch as Blurryface and Josh exchange blows, grappling with each other. Josh is so much stronger than Tyler—but Blurryface isn’t Tyler at all.

When the two part, panting with exertion from their scuffle, Blurryface has Josh’s drumstick. He twirls it expertly, running his fingers over the smoothed wood and baring his teeth at them. The sight of Josh’s drumstick in Blurry’s hand makes Tyler clutch at his hair. He can barely watch, the suspense and fear are so strong, but he can’t look away either.

Josh retrieves the other drumstick from the quiver, and when he speaks, he sounds calm:

“You can’t hurt me with that. It’s _my_ drumstick and I love it. You can’t hurt me using the things I _love_.”

Blurry’s smile drifts over his face slow and sweetly. He stops twirling the stick to stalk closer, nearly chest to chest with Josh. He reaches out to tap the end of Josh’s nose with the wide end of the drumstick, mocking him. Josh doesn’t take the bait and instead remains very still, watching, knuckles white on the drumstick clutched in his own hand.

“You fool,” Blurry whispers tenderly. “Using the things you love to hurt you is _what I do._ ”

Before Tyler can blink, Blurry has one hand tangled in the curly hair at the back of Josh’s head. He presses the wide end of the stick against Josh’s eye and _pushes through_ and Josh makes an agonized noise, a gurgle of pain in the back of his throat, spasming weakly and in vain.

“ _No!_ ” Tyler screeches as Blurry snags the second drumstick hanging loosely from Josh’s hand, mimicking the action with his other eye.

“Matching set. Looks great. Take my word for it.” With a violent shove, he pushes Josh’s lax body over the edge of the bridge, and Tyler barely manages to get one last glimpse of him (drumsticks lodged deep into his skull, protruding from his eyes like some sick cartoon that makes his stomach turn, mouth open in a look reminiscent of ecstasy but more accurately pain) before Josh is gone, plummeting down and into the treetops.

There is a long moment of silence while he and Blurry stare each other down, faces twisted in mirror images of hate before Tyler makes the decision and throws himself over the side of the bridge.

He’d rather fall with Josh than make it to the Treehouse with Blurry. He hears his other half’s angry scream but it is whisked away by the wind rushing through his ears. He closes his eyes, bracing himself for the pain of the trees, and hopes that he wakes before he reaches the bottom.


	8. Operation Keep Josh Safe

Josh wakes from sleeping nearly sixteen hours after having a nightmare about Tyler Joseph’s look alike—because one Tyler isn’t enough. It’s a two for one Tyler-special with extra gore and none of the good stuff. His phone is pressed against his bare chest, screen down, and when he pulls it away, it’s sticky with his own sweat. Nose wrinkling, he blearily presses the home button to see that it is just past noon.

He blinks, squinting.

(1 unread message)

He thinks it’s from his mother until he sees the time stamp—8:38 PM? Why would his mother message him when she could walk down the hallway and say whatever she needed to say to his face?

Opening his phone, he sees that the message is definitely not from his mother. It’s from Tyler Joseph.

**Awesome. I’ll be there after school. I’ve got your address. Feel better dude. _(Received 8:58 PM)_**

Suddenly, it all comes flooding back. While turning his room upside down for his sketchbook, his phone had buzzed on his desk. It had been an unfamiliar number, which had spurred his heart into beating harder than usual. It nearly jumped right out of his chest when he saw just who was texting him.

Josh had fallen asleep texting Tyler Joseph. This is like, sitcom stuff. Rom-com stuff. The stuff teenage girls’ dreams are made of—alright, maybe his own dreams too (only theoretically, because _if only_ Josh’s dreams could consist of texting Tyler until unconsciousness). His heart beats hard all over again when he remembers that the other boy is coming over to Josh’s house _later that day_.

He reaches for the pills on his nightstand and takes one, scrambling to find clean clothes in the mountains of laundry scattered about his room. Josh really needs to shower. His dream last night had him sweating, and he was beginning to smell a little ripe. Definitely not good enough for company.

When he bursts out of his room, clothes tucked under his arm, he nearly runs straight into his sister who is standing on the other side. Josh hopes he didn’t have some kind of dopey expression on his face, putting a hand over his pounding heart. That organ is definitely getting a workout today. If he keeps this up, he might not live long enough for Tyler to come over. Ha.

“Ashley. What the heck.”

“I heard noises,” she says. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay. Sorry.”

Ashley is fifteen, the sibling closest to him in age. He’d been just under two years old when she was born and had vivid memories of helping care for her throughout her childhood. He wonders when their roles had reversed, for her to be checking up on him.

“I’m okay. You just scared me.”

She looks at the clothes in his arms.

“Doing laundry?”

“Going to shower,” he says, trying to shift past her. He’s got hours, but he’d rather not wait until the last minute to get ready. Glancing down, he sees that she’s clutching a notebook in her hands, navy fingernail polish chipping from her bitten nails. She sees him looking at the book and seems embarrassed, shifting it up to press against her chest and wrap her arms around it.

“I wrote some more poems. Do you want to see?”

“Maybe later, Ash,” he says. “I really have to shower. I’ve got a friend coming over when school gets out.”

“Oh. Right. Okay.” She steps aside and he blurs past her and into the bathroom, locking the door behind him.

Josh turns the shower on as hot as he can stand it. When he catches sight of himself in the mirror, he does a double take, frowning. For a moment, it had looked like his eyes were rimmed in red (blood?). It was an unpleasant reminder of his dream last night, of the paralyzing pain he’d felt when the boy who looked like Tyler—Blurryface, he reminded himself, astounded as his own creativity to come up with a name so unique—had shoved his drumsticks into Josh’s skull.

But there was no red. It must have just been in his head, just like the dream.

#

By the time Josh has finished showering, he’s feeling the effects from the medication he took. Taking it on an empty stomach probably wasn’t the best idea, so he stops by the kitchen. It’s noon, but cereal is an any-time-of-day meal as far as Josh is concerned. He sees that Ashley has laid out his bowl, spoon, and favorite cereal box for him on the counter. He has no way to judge how long ago she might have done it.

Peering in, she’s sitting on the couch watching a daytime talk show with the subtitles on and the volume down low, still clutching her notebook.

He pours the cereal and snags the milk from the refrigerator, reading over last night’s texts with Tyler. The memories were a little blurry like someone had laid a calm fog over the top of them, but some elements were vividly clear. His heart had pounded, throat seizing, every time his phone had buzzed. Normally, Josh would have been a ball of nerves, practically incapable of maintaining a conversation, but thanks to his medicine the words had seemed to come easily.

Josh frowns. Maybe a little too easily. Had he really told Tyler that he was _dangerous?_ God, how embarrassing. The echo of his parents’ conversation must have been playing in his head when he typed that. He hopes that the other boy didn’t take it seriously. People didn’t want to be friends with a dangerous weirdo.

After breakfast, Josh retreats back to his room to tidy up. He’s barely been awake for an hour, but his medicine is already making his eyes heavy. After he makes his bed, it suddenly has never looked more comfortable, sheets and pillows begging to be mussed. A glance at the clock reveals that it is barely half-past one. School won’t be let out for hours.

Almost without thought, he drops onto his bed and doesn’t even have time to pull the covers over himself before he is asleep.

#

Ashley has a very important job today. It’s called Keep Josh Safe, and she’s taking it very seriously. Josh is, like, her favorite person ever. They used to be a lot closer, the way siblings have to be when they’re so close in age, but lately, she feels like Josh has drifted away from her. He used to practice on the beat-up drum set in the basement and make her sit and watch, but now she hasn’t heard him playing in weeks, and he hasn’t asked to read a single one of her poems.

She’s got the television turned all the way down so that she can listen to every movement Josh makes. It’s a pretty creepy thing to do, but she can’t help it. Mom says that Josh is really stressed out, and the medicine he’s on can make him forget things or make bad choices. She said that he might try to hurt himself.

Just the thought makes Ashley want to be sick. Josh is the best person she knows. He makes the perfect pizza rolls, he never bugs her when she takes too long in the bathroom (not like dad and her other siblings do), and he always tells her that her poems are beautiful. People as good as Josh aren’t ever supposed to be sad or want to hurt themselves. There’s no justice in it.

Ashley holds her breath when she realizes that she hasn’t heard Josh moving around in a while.

Creeping to his bedroom door, she finds it cracked open.

“Josh?” She says.

No response.

Her heart starts to throb. What if something happened to him while she was supposed to keep him safe? It would be all her fault. She pushes the door open, unsure of what she might see but expecting the worst.

But Josh is just sleeping, He’s fully dressed in his usual get up of clingy jeans and a band t-shirt, mouth open and slobbering on his pillow. She holds very still, watching to make sure that his chest is moving, before opening the door wide and leaving it open. Just in case.

Back in the living room, she opens her book of poems, flipping through them. Poetry has always been her favorite way to express herself. Lately, she’s been leaning on it more and more, but she isn’t sure if it’s helping. She’s so tired. More nights than often, she listens to her parents argue while she’s in bed trying to sleep. Sometimes they argue about Josh. Most often they argue about money.

Ashley has thought about getting a job, but there aren’t many places around Columbus that will hire a fifteen-year-old. Most employers just smile and tell her to come back after her next birthday, like a matter of months will make a difference between what she can and can’t handle. They’d be surprised. She’s a teenage girl. She can handle a lot.

She spends the next hours doodling in her journal, writing a few lines and then crossing them out. Her muse doesn’t seem to have much to say, today. Every half hour or so she drifts to Josh’s bedroom door to make sure he’s still breathing and to text her mom with an update on his condition.

When the doorbell rings, she nearly jumps out of her own skin. Ashley isn’t stupid. She’s fifteen and cute (not that those things make a difference to a person who likes to hurt other people), and she doesn’t open the door for strangers. Her younger siblings aren’t out of school yet, and neither of her parents are supposed to be home for hours. However, when she peeks through the sight in the door, she sees that this isn’t a stranger necessarily. She _does_ know this boy.

He’s pretty cute. Older, with a red beanie tugged low over his forehead. His car is parked in the drive (off to the side, like they always tell visitors to do) and his backpack is slung across his shoulder.

Josh’s friend is Tyler Joseph? Like, basketball-starter homecoming-king Tyler Joseph? Holy shit. How does her hair look? Has she even _brushed_ it today? She can’t remember brushing her teeth after lunch. Does her breath still smell like Doritos? Oh god, this is a nightmare. Literally, this is something out of one of her nightmares. When she presses her eye back to the peephole, she can see that he is stepping back to glance at the number on the house as if unsure if he is in the right place.

Nothing else to do, Ashley opens the door a crack.

“Yes?” She has to clear her throat to say it again.

He seems startled to see her, giving a small smile and awkward hand wave. “Hey. I’m Tyler. I’m here for Josh. We’re supposed to work on an art project.”

Her heart falls when she realizes that he doesn’t recognize her. Of course not. She’s only a sophomore and he’s a senior—but they go to the same school for Christ’s sake, and there _was_ that one semester where he’d acted as a teacher’s assistant in her physical science class, and he only sat in the same room with her for two whole semesters.

Begrudgingly, Ashley opens the door just enough for Tyler to awkwardly twist and shuffle through.

“Josh has never mentioned you were friends before.”

“I don’t know if I’d consider us _friends_ really. We’re partners for an art project.”

Something in his tone sets off warning bells in the back of Ashley’s mind, and in a single moment she’s no longer Ashley-with-a-crush, she’s Ashley-with-a-mission. Ashley with a brother. Operation Keep Josh Safe is still in motion, and she realizes for the first time that her mission might not just include keeping him safe from himself, but from other people too. Her head reels with the thought because there are _so many people_ and just one _her_ , and how can she make sure that they all see the Josh she sees, the Josh who bounces when he drums because he loves it so much and wants to put on a show, the Josh who actually takes time to flip the pizza rolls halfway through their time in the microwave or oven.

How does she show Tyler these things? Ashley can’t. She can’t even protect herself from mean girls at school, how could she protect Josh from anything? The thought physically hurts. She’s struck with grief, a pain so keen and sudden that she thinks she might cry right in front of this boy who probably doesn’t even know her name.

Ashley _does not cry,_ though. She forces herself to take a deep breath and let it go through her nose.

She points.

“Josh’s room is the last at the end of the hall.” Her voice comes out stronger than she thought it would. Tyler disappears without another word and she hears the quiet sound of Josh’s bedroom door closing.

Ashley goes back to the living room to sit on the sofa, clutching her notebook in her hands, staring at the television and seeing nothing.

#

Josh has a nice house. It isn’t as large or expensive looking as Tyler’s, but he likes the way it feels comfortable. Sometimes, as much as he loves his family and his home, he feels like an outsider in it. Surely with a house so warm, Josh never feels that way. The hallway is filled with bedroom doors, but the one at the end is wide open, and that’s the door Tyler gravitates to.

He peeks his head in and spots Josh straight away. The older boy is sprawled on his bed, one arm thrown over his head and the other wrapped over his torso like he’s trying to give himself a hug. The bed is made but mussed, and it’s clear that Josh is having a restless sleep. His shirt has ridden up past his navel, revealing a flat but untoned stomach and a line of dark hair disappearing into his dark jeans.

Woah. Like, Josh should cover up. He’s probably like, really cold. Then again, Tyler’s feeling a little warm, so maybe _not_ , but still.

Resolving not to look at the boy on his bed, Tyler takes the opportunity to snoop and take in the room without being observed.

It’s a relatively small room, but at least Josh doesn’t share it with any of his siblings. The tiny twin bed has been pushed into the far corner. The drapes are thick and block out nearly all light, but they are pulled aside to let the sun in. Most of the furniture in the room is basic: dresser, desk, desk chair, night stand. There’s no television like Tyler has. A drum practice pad and a single beaten drumstick peeking out from underneath the bed, the sight of which makes Tyler shiver unpleasantly, remembering his dream.

The feature of the room, what makes it unique, are the posters up all over the walls. There’s barely any paint visible, instead, there are pictures of bands plastered on every available space. Tyler tries to find a common thread among them, a genre, but it seems like Josh has absolutely no taste. He likes everything.

On Josh’s dresser are ticket stubs for concerts and movies. Sitting conspicuously on top is a plastic hospital bracelet that has been cut into two with scissors. Tyler pokes at the bracelet to turn it over.

It’s for DUN, JOSHUA W., followed by his date of birth. The time is for just past ten of Sunday night. Josh was in the _hospital_? He must have really been sick.

“What are you doing?”

Tyler jumps at the sound of Josh’s voice, knocking the bracelet off of the dresser and onto the floor. When he turns, Josh is rubbing at one of his eyes with a lazy fist, tugging his shirt down to cover himself and struggling to sit up. Red-faced, Tyler stoops to pick up the bracelet and return it to the dresser top.

“You know,” he says. “Being a jerk. Invading your privacy.”

“Good thing I didn’t have anything embarrassing left out,” Josh says. He stretches and _what the heck is up with Tyler noticing this kid’s hipbones? Put on some sweatpants and a sweater for goodness sake_.

“Er—yeah, no, I totally found all your porn anyway. I’m good at sleuthing.” Considering the wide-eyed, nearly panicked expression on Josh’s face and the way his eyes dart to the bottom drawer of the dresser, Tyler’s joke has definitely been in bad taste and he scrambles to rectify the situation.

“Oh my god, I’m totally kidding dude, I definitely didn’t go—looking for—I’m sorry. Really. Nothing embarrassing was witnessed. Scout’s honor.”

Besides, who keeps physical copies of porn anymore? That’s what the internet is for.

Josh breathes a sigh of relief. “Good. I don’t want you to know about all my fetishes.”

Tyler gapes. Then he laughs, literally _guffaws_ , bending at the waist to put his hands on his knees. It takes a moment for him to think that maybe Josh isn’t kidding, but when he looks up, Josh is smiling sleepily, patting at his wildly curly hair.

“Do you have my sketchbook?” Josh asks, yawning. “Sorry I was sleeping. Did Ashley let you in?”

“I broke in,” Tyler deadpans, opening his book bag to retrieve the stolen sketchbook. He takes out his own for good measure and passes them over. Josh’s face lights up when his book is back in his hands, but he raises his eyebrows, confused at the book with TYLER JOSEPH printed across the front. “We’re supposed to know each other’s art. I figured that since I’d looked through yours already, this is, like, a fair trade.”

“You want me to look now?”

Suddenly, Tyler feels very nervous. He’s not much for drawing or painting, but so many of his works are based off of the things in his head or the things that have happened to him or the things he’s written or wants to write. It’s a vulnerable feeling, for Josh to be holding a piece of him, no matter how small. Tyler winces with shame—if this is how Josh felt when Tyler looked through _his_ sketchbook, then Tyler feels even worse.

“If you want,” he replies. He watches Josh’s face closely while the boy flips through his sketchbook, but his expression is inscrutable. To distract himself, he paces, looking at the posters and art work around the room.

An image over the desk catches his eye and his heart stutters. It’s been crudely drawn on a piece of printer paper, but it’s unmistakable. Tyler glances over his shoulder to make sure Josh is distracted (and he totally seems to be, turning Tyler’s sketchbook on its side and squinting at one of the drawings) before moving to get a closer look.

His breath catches.

It’s a treehouse. A very particular treehouse winding up the trunk of a massive tree with sprawling limbs. He counts the houses: one, two, seven, maybe more hidden amongst the dense, lush foliage.

“Josh,” Tyler says, mouth feeling numb. He’s talking without his own consent, a shaking finger pointing to the drawing. “What’s this?”

“Oh. I must have drawn that last night. I took some medicine and—don’t worry about it.”

“Where’d you get the idea for it?” Tyler has no idea what he’s even saying, what he might be getting at, but there’s an itching at the back of his skull like someone is scratching or tapping there, the same feeling he felt when he saw the picture of the gas mask or when Josh first expressed the subject for their art project.

“A dream,” Josh says, slowly.

“A dream,” Tyler whispers. He looks over his shoulder and Josh is watching him intently. “A dream about the forest.”

“Yes.”

“But before that, it was the sea.”

Josh’s face goes white. He looks like he’s about to be sick, like someone has nicked a vein and is letting all the blood rush out of him, like he’s seen a ghost, like he’s just watched a corpse rise up from its own coffin and do a jig at the funeral or something. The dark circles under his eyes stand out starkly and he looks so tired but so _awake_.

“How do you know about my dream?” Josh breathes.

“ _I had the same dream._ ”


	9. Gathering Evidence

“Dude. You look like you’re about to pass out.” Josh is definitely swaying dangerously on his feet. His head feels too heavy for his shoulders, too full of this bombshell Tyler’s just dropped on him from 20,000 feet. Mostly, he feels like his brain has short circuited. He doesn’t notice Tyler’s thin hands wrapping around his biceps and urging him back and back until his thighs touch brush bed and he collapses there.

“Josh. Josh. Are you okay? Gosh, this is nuts.”

His door bursts open, startling both of them. Ashley is standing there, eyes wide and panicked.

“Josh, what’s wrong? Are you okay? What did you _do_ to him?” She seems equal parts concerned and furious. She turns her angry eyes on Tyler, who seems to crumple under her gaze.

“I didn’t do anything—”

At her sudden appearance, Josh is brought harshly back to reality, like a painful pinch waking him from a dream. “Ashley—get out. I’m fine. Get out.”

Now it’s her face that crumples like Josh has slapped her. Her mouth quivers, eyes narrowing dangerously like she’s on the verge of exploding or crying. Josh immediately regrets his tone, but his heart is _pounding_. There’s no logical way to explain the situation. He’d end up in the hospital again on the third floor where all the psych patients are, where you have to take a special elevator so that the patients don’t escape and where all the rooms lock from the outside.

“Fine,” she says coolly, slamming the door on her way out.

He makes a note to apologize to her later when things aren’t so confusing. For now, other things must take precedence, and secrecy is vital. Josh points to the stereo system on the floor at the foot of his bed. “Turn it on. Loud.”

Tyler takes orders well, kneeling and searching for the power button. The CD in is Green Day’s Dookie. He turns it up sufficiently loud so that any ear pressed against the door wouldn’t be able to make out the conversation inside (not that he thinks Ashley would go that far—but he couldn’t be too careful).

Clutched in Tyler’s hand is the drawing of the Treehouse. He throws himself on Josh’s bed like it’s _his_ bed too, folding his legs criss-cross-applesauce. Josh doesn’t even care that he’s alone in his room with the best looking guy at his high school and they are currently perched on his bed like girls about to gossip at a slumber party. He’s got bigger fish to fry.

“I can’t believe this,” he says.

“Me neither,” Tyler mumbles. “This is impossible. You were there for the pier?”

“We jumped into the ocean.”

“And the bridge?”

“Blurryface.”

Tyler shudders. “Don’t. Don’t say that name.”

Josh frowns. Now Tyler is the one who looks like he’s seen a ghost. He won’t meet Josh’s eyes, just keeps running his fingers over the picture of the Treehouse Josh practiced drawing last night while texting in his hazy, drugged fog. Obviously, Blurryface had seriously upset him—and why wouldn’t it? Wasn’t Josh upset when his body did terrible things in his dreams? Blurryface must not have been so different for Tyler. They looked like twins, after all.

“This is like, surreal. This is like an episode of The X-Files or something. This shouldn’t be possible.”

“Maybe we’re crazy,” Tyler says. He sounds more vulnerable than Josh has ever heard him, more like dream-Tyler than ever. But no—there was no dream-Tyler. Dreams and reality, both were the _same_.

“Both of us can’t be hallucinating the same thing,” Josh says vehemently. The thought of being _crazy_ is his worst nightmare. “We are _not_ crazy. Something crazy is just…happening to us.”

Tyler manages a wane smile. “That actually makes me feel a little better. I just can’t believe—that was _you_. I said those mean things to you. We died together, like, twice.

“I’ve died three times,” Josh adds.

“Three?” Tyler counts on long, thin fingers. “The dream we first met, and then the bridge. What’s third?”

“The night before last, I dreamed I was in the forest, but I was alone. I was trying to make it to the Treehouse, but I was attacked by these shadow creatures.”

Tyler frowns. “That sounds terrible. Really bad things happen to you in my—our dreams. The drumsticks in the eyes really messed me up today, dude. You don’t even know.”

“God,” Josh breathes. “I know I keep saying it, but this is insane. I can’t believe this is happening.”

“It doesn’t feel real,” Tyler agrees. “I just don’t understand _why_. _How?_ What’s the purpose of this? These dreams are…weird. They’re so vivid, like nothing I’ve ever dreamed before.”

“Well, dreams are symbolic, right? It has to mean something.” Exactly _what_ it meant, Josh had no clue. The whole premise of symbolism seemed to center on not being obvious. What did it mean when a person tries to herd their crush into the ocean and to his death? Maybe he could Google it.

Wait—not a crush— _that_ might suggest that—but no. Bigger fish to fry.

“What if these dreams mean something bigger?” Tyler says. At Josh’s confused glances, he continues. “Do you believe in God?”

“Yes,” Josh answers immediately.

“Because you said something on the way to the Treehouse, something that struck a chord with me. Do you remember? I asked you what was in the Treehouse and you said you didn’t know. You said maybe—”

“—God.”

“ _Yes_. God communicated through dreams. Jacob’s Joseph. Mary’s Joseph. Solomon. They were all sent dreams from God.”

“Even if this is from God—which I’m not sold on, that seems, I don’t know, sacrilegious or _something_ —what does it mean? All I know is that we need to get to the top of the Treehouse.” Josh nearly continues but stops himself just in time. That isn’t completely truthful. He knows that they need to get to the Treehouse.

He also knows in the same instinctual way that he _won’t_ make it. It’s in Tyler’s destiny. Josh doesn’t think he has one of those, as nice as it sounds.

“We need to gather more evidence,” Tyler mutters, looking lost in thought. His eyes dart to Josh’s, giving a _look_ , the kind of look his mom will give his dad over dinner sometimes when she wants him to read her mind. Josh’s dad isn’t a mind reader and neither is Josh—not that it wouldn’t be sick.

“Gather evidence? How?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Tyler asks, shucking off his shoes to place them uniformly by the bed.

“Not really,” Josh says, eyeing the other boy warily as he laid back with his head on _Josh’s_ pillow, folding his hands gently over his thin chest and crossing his ankles demurely. Tyler rolls his eyes.

“Dude. We’re going to take a nap. Together.”

That’s possibly the last thing that Josh expected Tyler Joseph to ever say to him. He dimly wonders if this isn’t all a hallucination caused by his medicine or a dream his subconscious has created. Maybe he’s still asleep right now. It’s a disorienting thought that kind of makes his head swim, like when he stands up too fast and gets vertigo.

“You want to sleep with me.”

“Proximity doesn’t seem to have anything to do with it. We’ve been having these dreams from across town.” Tyler’s eyes widen. “Unless it does. What if the dreams are stronger since we’re so close together? That would be—scary, that would be sick. Are you tired enough to fall asleep right now, or should we do something? We could take a walk? Never mind, you’re sick, that was silly—”

“I’m on medicine that makes me tired all the time. Why do you think I fell asleep waiting for you to come over?”

“Awesome.” Tyler pats the empty spot on the bed next to him.

Josh’s face reddens. He’s never been in bed with someone before, except his siblings when he was like, ten. He’s never been in the same bed with someone he wasn’t related to, especially not someone as attractive as Tyler Joseph. “Shouldn’t we like, lay head to feet or something?”

Tyler’s nose wrinkles. “Why would I want your feet in my face? Feet are gross.”

The younger boy closes his eyes like he’s asleep, lips parting gently. When a moment passes without Josh moving, he cracks his eyes open to stare blankly.

Begrudgingly (yeah, _right_ ), Josh shifted to lay next to Tyler. The bed is only a twin, which feels small even when he’s the only one lying in it. They’re so close together that their arms and legs are touching from shoulder to ankle. How the heck is Josh supposed to sleep like this? Why is Tyler so warm? Does he have a fever or something? Is he sick?

“You better not get me sick,” Tyler whispers, startling Josh.

He snorts, nervous. “I told you, I’m not contagious.”

Tyler doesn’t answer. Even though every cell and nerve in his body seemed alive and wired to the presence next to him, Josh squeezes his eyes closed. His closed eyelids trigger something in his brain and he goes heavy with medicinally induced exhaustion. Within moments, he feels like he’s asleep.

And waking up to Tyler Joseph on top of him. Tyler is straddling his torso, slender thighs gripping Josh’s ribs. His hands are planted with one on each side of Josh’s head, face inches from his own. Tyler is even better looking up close when all the little imperfections are visible. He’s real and warm, and it’s too much.

“Off,” Josh says, panicking. It’s hard to mind having such an attractive dude on top of him, but then again, Josh kind of fucking minds. He presses a hand against Tyler’s sternum (skin burning hot even through the shirt of his uniform, ribs tangible under his fingers) and pushes, but he doesn’t budge.

Tyler leans closer, face twisting angrily. “How’d you know it was me? I look _just like him_.”

It hits Josh then that, of course, this isn’t Tyler (why would _Tyler_ want to be in this position with Josh? He wouldn’t. Not in, like, a million years). This is that evil, malignant creature that looks like Tyler Joseph, the one who goes by the name of Blurryface. He beats Josh’s hand aside and presses his forearm down into the prone boy’s neck.

“Listen. Don’t speak. I like my men strong and silent. Mostly the _silent_.” He presses harder with his arm until Josh sees spots in front of his eyes. Blurryface eases up just enough for circulation to return, but drawing breaths with the heavy weight on top of him is difficult at best. When he speaks, his breath brushes Josh’s face. “We’re going to get so _close_ , Josh.”

Josh thinks that they’re close enough as it is. Too close. Even if Blurryface wasn’t crushing the breath from his lungs, he wouldn’t be able to breathe. His heart is pounding and skipping like a rock on water. Both hands are wrapped around the creature’s forearm trying to push it away. Josh just needs an inch, just a centimeter and he’ll be able to breathe a little easier, but it seems like the harder he struggles, the more Blurryface _likes_ it.

“Don’t forget about me,” Blurryface whispers, leaning down almost close enough to kiss him.

“You’ll see me soon. We’ll have a—”

Josh is in the forest then, and Tyler Joseph is above him now, but this is definitely the real Tyler. He’s a respectful distance, leaning over Josh’s prone body looking exceedingly concerned. When he sees Josh’s eyes open, he closes his in a look of heady relief.

“Thank God. You were making these noises. I thought you were dying.” Before Josh can soothe Tyler’s fears (this is a dream, after all, it’s not like Josh can really be injured), Tyler stands, alert and looking out into the trees. His eyes are wild with fear. “You’ve got to get up Josh. There’s this —thing out there.”

“Shadow?” Josh asks, rolling onto his hands and knees so he can stand shakily. His body is trembling with adrenalin, but when he takes a deep breath, it comes easily. His chest is no longer tight and his heart feels strong and steady, though a little fast. He reaches back to feel the drumsticks in his quiver and is comforted.

“It could be. It could be worse. I can’t tell. We need to move fast.” He offers Josh his hands and Josh catches a glimpse of his palms, torn and scabbed with blood from the last dream. He rubs at an eye and feels the crust of dried blood. At least his eyes are still there.

Together they start to sprint, moving as quickly as they can without sacrificing their stealth. Everything feels more intense, darker. Something in the DNA of the forest has changed. It’s not as bright anymore; like someone has bled the color from the leaves and the sky. The air feels thick and ill. Something has gone wrong here.

But the hum of the Treehouse is as strong as ever, singing its hopeful chord into the trees and into Josh’s bones. He grabs that hope and clothes himself in it, but it feels so fragile against the doom around him, cotton instead of chainmail.

Josh catches sight of whatever is following them. Sometimes, he hears its loping footsteps behind them like it’s trailing along, above them like its scaling trees, beneath them like it’s pounding up from underneath the earth begging to be set free. When he catches sight of it standing in the trees as they pass by, his shivers in horror.

It is very similar to the shadow creatures, humanoid in shape. It has an inky aura that seems to pulse in time with Josh’s heartbeat. It is featureless, faceless, with limbs that seem a little too long and thin for its body. Where its feet fall, the ground is drained of color, slipping into monochrome.

The air around it seems sucked lifeless, misty and bland like fog.

Josh runs harder. Whatever that thing is, he doesn’t want it near him or touching him or breathing his air. Tyler is ahead of him, constantly glancing over his shoulder, maybe to keep sight of the creature tailing them or to make sure Josh is keeping pace.

“Treehouse—” Tyler mouths, incapable of speaking with how hard they were running.

Josh points. The hum of the forest’s center structure is getting louder and feels like a bass drum in his chest and bones. The Treehouse is just ahead. On instinct, their arms and legs pump harder, feet thudding against the forest floor as they push themselves to their limits.

When they break the clearing, they aren’t alone. The creature chasing them is sitting morosely by the trunk of the tree. It is the picture of sadness and hopelessness, legs folded under it, hands loosely clasped in its lap. The air around it is thick with whatever magnetism draws the color away, and the sight of it so close to the Treehouse makes Josh afraid. Fundamentally afraid. Afraid for his wellbeing, for his life, for Tyler’s life, for the life of the Treehouse, and the forest, and the wasteland beyond.

Both boys seem frozen under its sightless gaze when it glances up as they break through the brush. The creature crawls forward, dragging itself up onto its knees, leaving a trail of blackened forest in its wake. It clasps its hands in front of it like it is praying.

Josh draws his drumstick.

“Tyler,” he whispers. The forest has gone quiet and still, like with all the color is disappearing all of the life. “You need to get to the Treehouse.”

“Not without you. We’re going together.” The conviction in his voice, stitched up with hints of desperation, makes Josh feel _good_. For the first time, he believes it. He believes that he will see the inside of the Treehouse.

“Alright. But you aren’t armed. You go and I’ll take care of this—this thing. I’ll be right behind you.”

Tyler steels himself, nodding. He sets his shoulders and takes the first step into the clearing. The creature doesn’t move to rise. It stays prone, hands together. Tyler starts taking more careful steps like he’s approaching a feral creature. To get to the rope ladder, he’ll have to pass right by it, but it doesn’t seem to take any notice of the younger boy at all. Even when Tyler is _right next to it_ , it keeps its head turned in Josh’s direction.

When Tyler finally makes it to the ladder and begins to climb, the relief that Josh experiences is physically palpable like a weight has been lifted off of his chest. The ladder shifts with Tyler’s movements, especially when he pauses, turning to give Josh an urgent look.

 _What the heck are you waiting for?_ the look says.

 _I don’t really know,_ Josh tries to say back without speaking, but he probably just looks confused. He _is_ confused.

Why isn’t this creature attacking them? The darkness around it has swelled like a disease, a smear of black and gray and white. It lowers its head when Josh moves closer, shaking its hands, and Josh realizes that it’s not praying. It’s pleading.

 _Please,_ it seems to be saying. But please what?

“It wants to come with us,” Tyler says. His voice sounds far away, muddled. It reminds Josh of summertime in the pool, how he liked to dive in and sit on the bottom until his eyes and lungs burned, until he could hear the distant murmur of his parents and siblings shouting for him to come up.

Josh knows that whatever this shadow is, it can’t be allowed in the Treehouse. It can’t be allowed to continue in the forest. He adjusts his grip on the drumstick, stalking closer carefully. The closer he moves, the more the creature’s head bows, hands raised in supplication.

But he hesitates. He’s never hurt an innocent before. In his dreams, he has only ever acted to defend himself. To strike this creature seems _wrong_. Who is Josh to pass judgment on another being? Did this shadow know how it is hurting the forest and the world, or is it ignorant? Is it capable of changing, of stopping itself? These are questions he doesn’t have answers to— questions he will never have answers to.

He strikes at it and the top of its skull shatters like smoky glass. For a moment, it remains bowed on the ground, still pleading silently, but then it becomes slack, collapsing forward. The glow dims and then disappears.

From its shattered cranium spills blood of every color, lime and salmon and eggplant and all the other food colors. Its body turns to smoke, drifting away into the rolling mist of the rising heat, but the sap-like color remains. The ground which has been drained of life seems to regain what is lost, grass thriving back into lush green and dirt softening into brown earth.

The air seems easier to breathe, and whatever spell the creature had cast is broken.

“Josh.” Tyler has climbed down from the ladder to put a hand on his shoulder. His hand seems unnaturally warm against Josh’s cool flesh. When they meet eyes, he can see that Tyler looks disturbed. “It was you. It looked just like you, and you killed it.”

 _No_ , Josh wants to say. _You’re wrong_. Instead, he shrugs out of Tyler’s touch and moves to the rope ladder, wrapping his scraped palms around the roughly weaved rope. It stings a little, but he doesn’t mind. He climbs, feeling the rope move with Tyler’s weight following behind him.

When he looks up, he can see the entrance to the first treehouse. He reaches out and brushes his fingers against the rough wood, pressing to push the cover aside—

In the real world, Tyler jerks, rolling right off of the twin bed and onto the floor. Josh is startled into wakefulness, heart pounding, looking for the source of Tyler’s anxiety. The other boy is scrambling at his jeans—what the heck is he _doing?_

He pulls free his phone, and once it is no longer in the confines of the boy’s pocket, Josh can hear that it is buzzing furiously. A glance at his alarm clock reveals that it is nearing seven in the evening.

“Hello? Yes—I’m on my way now. I know, we totally lost track of time. Five minutes, I promise. Go ahead and start without me, I’ll catch up. Love you.” He ends the call and catches Josh's eyes. They share twin awed expressions. “I have to go to dinner,” Tyler breathes.

“Yeah, okay, cool. I’ll...walk you out or something.”

Josh has forgotten that at this time of night, all of his family will be home. As soon as his bedroom door opens, he can hear the sound of Abigail bugging Ashley in the room they share together. The television is on in the living room, and he can hear the comforting sound of his mother cooking in the kitchen, the gentle clinks of pots and pans in the sink.

“Let’s go out the back so you don’t get twenty-questions from my family.”

“Twenty questions each or twenty questions as a unit?” Tyler asks. He still seems winded from the dream. Josh presses his lips together to smother a smile.

“Doesn’t matter. Let’s go.” They sneak into the dining room and Josh edges the patio door open, closing it gently behind them. The sun is still up but noticeably lower in the sky. They’ve been asleep for only a few hours, but it feels like so much time had passed.

“I’ll text you,” Tyler whispers even though Josh’s family is inside and there’s no one at risk of hearing them. “We still have to talk about the dreams, but altogether, I think Operation Nap was a success.”

Josh nods so that he doesn’t have to open his mouth and risk embarrassing himself. Tyler disappears through the gate of their backyard and around the house towards his car, leaving Josh to linger on the patio in the oppressive Midwestern heat.

Back inside the house, his mother greets him in the kitchen doorway.

“Whose car is in our driveway?”

“Tyler. A friend from school. He’s gone now,” Josh says, hoping that he doesn’t look _love struck_ or anything equally mortifying. At the surprised look on his mother’s face, Josh does feel a little embarrassed, and a little angry. “I have friends,” he hisses, moving past her to slink back to his bedroom. As he passes, he glances in and sees Ashley lounging on her bed, listening attentively to Abigail read her library book aloud.

In his room, he closes and locks his door. He doesn’t have much of an appetite. Instead, he feels something that he hasn’t felt in a while—inspired. Dragging his sketchbook out from where it had been forgotten half under his bed, he opens to a clean page and scrounges for colored pencils. He needs a few specific ones—lime, salmon, eggplant.

He draws and ignores his mother’s knocks, phone clutched in one anxious hand, waiting.


	10. Shifting Sand

It happens to Tyler every so often: the bad days. The low days. He wakes to the sound of his alarm clock on Wednesday morning. It is the second night in three days that he hasn’t shared dreams with Josh, and he can’t decide why that makes him feel so _disappointed_. There is no sunlight through his window, just another rainy, gray day.

He does not want to get out of bed. _I’m sick_ , he thinks to himself for a moment. _Whatever Josh has_ is _contagious._ Tyler begins to go over the symptoms in his head but comes up short.

He feels no pain. He feels _nothing_.

“No,” he whispers to the ceiling swathed in shadows. “Please, not this.” 

Tyler forces himself onto his elbow so that he can reach the nightstand by his bed. In the drawer are two books: a Bible growing dusty and a battered calendar book. Ignoring the former, he opens the calendar and takes the pen from its place snuggled in the spiral binding. On the square for that Wednesday, he draws a large X.

There are no other Xs for that month ( _yet,_ a voice whispers in the back of his mind, silky and sinister), but for the month prior, there are two. None for the three months before that, but Tyler knows that if he goes back far enough, there are weeks filled with Xs. Months filled with them, tiny days lost to the demons in his head.

One X is nothing to be concerned with. Even two is nothing. There’s no reason for his hands to be shaking so badly, no reason for his eyes to be stinging. He’s so _weak_. Tyler closes the calendar and puts it back in his drawer. When he falls back against his pillow, he feels exhausted.

He knows that there will be no getting out of bed for him today. He tries to console himself with the fact that he hasn’t missed any school so far this semester (not like last year—but _no_ he wouldn’t think on that now because this is not last year). Tyler can afford to take a day to himself. A day for rest and rejuvenation. A day for prayer. He should get up to tell his mother that he isn’t feeling well, but he can’t. His limbs feel frozen, like the momentum required to break them from their molds is beyond him.

He wants to message Josh, to say something about the lack of dream-sharing, but can’t even twitch his fingers. Not for his own benefit.

Tyler lies there, stuck in place like a fly in his own web until his mother comes in a half hour later.

“Ty, honey? Are you up?”

“I’m sick,” he says. “Can I stay home from school?”

His mother frowns and comes into the room. She’s still in her robe, arms crossed, lips downturned with concern. “What hurts?”

 _Everything,_ Tyler wants to say. _Everywhere._ But he can’t say that, even if it feels like the truth.

“Migraine,” he lies.

She makes a sympathetic noise. “I’ll call the school. Do you need anything before we all go? I hate to leave you home alone.”

“Will you close the curtains? The light’s bothering me.”

And then it is just Tyler in a big, empty house. He should feel safe under his blankets in a quiet, dark space, but he just feels confined. He’s confined in this house, confined in his roles, confined in his mind and in his thoughts. There is nothing safe about his head. There’s nothing safe about the voice that sounds like his own, the voice that sometimes speaks from the back of his mind and says terrible things.

“Go away,” Tyler whispers. “Please, go away.”

It does. He can will the voice away, for now. He isn’t so weak that it consumes him. _Yet,_ that silky voice that sounds like his own whispers from the cage in the back of his mind. It echoes in the walls of his skull, reverberating again and again.

_Yet._

Tyler lies in bed all day, watching the shadows on the wall lengthen and change, watching time pass him by and feeling helpless to grab hold and stop it.

#

Josh hates going to the doctor. The waiting room is a cold, unembellished place with nothing to read except for magazines about homemaking and romance novels that have seen better days. He associates sickness with physical pain, and to be here around sick people without any sickness of his own makes him feel like an outsider. It makes him feel guilty—like he’s taking the doctor’s time away from _real_ patients.

The tiny waiting room with the uncomfortable chairs isn’t a hopeful place. There’s a sense of dread in the air. It feels like limbo, like purgatory, half-way in between hell and hell. There is no better outcome that Josh can see, not when the only reason he’s here is to talk to a near-stranger about issues he doesn’t even like to admit to himself.

The only thing that comforts him is the notebook in his lap. He’s positioned awkwardly, legs crossed so as to shift the open notebook away from his mother’s prying eyes. He would have put a chair between them if that wasn’t so rude and if he didn’t suspect that she might try to drive away while he was in the exam room with the doctor.

In the notebook, he’s writing down his dreams.

The dreams are weird. _Weird just means misunderstood,_ Tyler insisted the night before. _So let’s get to know them._ There is no way that Josh is going to be the skeptic Scully to Tyler’s liberal Mulder (no matter how skeptical he really is about the dreams being messages from God). Truth be told, Josh doesn’t know what to make of the dreams. It feels like some vast phenomena that— even if they devote their lives to studying—will never be any less mysterious. Like spontaneous combustion or rising sales at Burger King.

Nevertheless, if Tyler wants them to pick the dreams apart, Josh will pick. He’ll pick gladly. For some outrageous reason, Tyler doesn’t seem alarmed by their predicament—by his connection with Josh. If anything, he seems fascinated. It’s kind of mind-boggling for Josh to think that there’s someone out there who willingly wants to spend time with him, who willingly isn’t shying away from something as _insane_ as sharing dreams with him.

Tyler suggested that they both document the dreams to the best of their abilities, which is exactly what Josh is doing. That task alone is concerning enough. He leaves out all the embarrassing parts —part about how it hurt to hurt Tyler, about how _good_ Tyler looked even covered in dusty desert grime and blood and dried seawater.

Josh does feel obligated to write about being trapped inside his own head, forced to be a secondary witness to his own actions. He remembers the voice he heard, the one that spoke to him in his own head while in the desert. He’d forgotten about it for a moment. He wishes that he could forget about it for good.

A nurse comes into the waiting room and calls his name.

“Do you want me to come with you?” His mother asks, gathering her purse.

“No,” Josh says quickly. “I’m not five years old. I can do this on my own.”

He sees the hurt expression on her face, he knows that he’s lashing out in fear and anxiety and hurting her. He’s ashamed to see it but helpless to change it. Instead, he pretends like he doesn’t see the way her face goes red with embarrassment as she sits back down. Acknowledging and apologizing isn’t in his repertoire today.

He wishes that he’d taken another one of his pills before leaving the house.

If the waiting room is bad, then the examination room is even worse. Josh is poked and prodded by the nurse taking his vitals, measuring and weighing him (two things he’s insecure enough about without strangers commenting on them, thanks very much), and making him generally uncomfortable. Despite what he said to his mother in the waiting room about not being five years old, he _feels_ five years old.

Like the smallest, most afraid five-year-old.

Josh has had the same doctor ever since he was a child. It’s a kindly, older man who still takes all his notes in longhand, ignoring the computer in the corner of the room that the nurses type on noisily.

“So what’s the problem today, Joshua? Feeling anxious?”

“I guess,” Josh mumbles, picking at the folding corner of his notebook. He hadn’t wanted to leave it in the waiting room in case his mother decided to snoop.

“I see you had a nice stay at the hospital up north after having an anxiety attack. Can you describe that for me?”

The number of questions he has to answer seems endless. The more he has to talk, the smaller he feels. In the end, he tries to downplay everything. The ambulance was a misunderstanding. The panic attack wasn’t that bad. He doesn’t deal with them that often, no. He hates himself with every lie. It feels like he isn’t even in control of his mouth anymore.

Why did his pride have to be so much bigger than his common sense?

In the end, there’s nothing the doctor can do without Josh’s cooperation. He looks as disappointed with Josh as Josh feels in himself, which only makes him angry. This isn’t _easy_. What did this guy want, for Josh to spill his guts all over the waxed tiled floor?

Well, fuck that.

He gives Josh a single script for one refill of the anxiety meds he was giving at the hospital and instructions to take them as needed before bed so that he doesn’t feel drowsy during the daytime.

Josh doesn’t bother saying _thank you_ or _goodbye_. He clenches the piece of paper in his hand, crumpling it partially, and storms back to the waiting room.

Josh sees the confusion, the overwhelming helplessness on his mother’s face when she catches sight of him. He sees it. He just doesn’t _care_ right now.

Caring isn’t in his repertoire today, either.

While at the pharmacy waiting for his prescription to be filled, Josh texts Tyler.

**i’ll be back at school tomorrow. _(Sent 4:17 PM)_  **

Tyler, who is usually good at texting back promptly, is silent. School is out, and Tyler should have been home by then, but the phone remains dark and his inbox empty. Ten minutes pass. Twenty. Then the pharmacists are calling Josh’s name and he’s paying for his prescription, hyper-aware of his growing lack of funds and lack of hours at work.

The whole way home, Josh clutches his phone tight enough for his knuckles to crack. He’s so stupid, texting Tyler first. Whatever tentative friendship that had formed between them had obviously evaporated overnight. It was built on shifting sand: doomed.

“Josh,” his mother says quietly on their drive home. “What happened during your appointment?”

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” he says back. “So you and Ashley and everyone else can stop treating me like I’m some kind of basket case. The doctor said I was _fine_ , so why don’t you just drop it?”

“No one thinks those things about you,” she says sharply.

Josh doesn’t bother replying. He opens his notebook and pretends to read it, turning pages every so often to keep up the charade, but mostly just staring at the few filled pages and fuming silently. His mother doesn’t say another word the entire way home.

Inside the house, Josh heads straight back and to his room. On his way, he catches sight of Ashley cooking dinner in the kitchen (breakfast for dinner, the only thing she knows _how_ to cook). When she sees him, her mouth twists into a smile automatically. He doesn’t return it. Instead, he goes continues on, closing and locking his bedroom door.

Josh tosses the pill bottle onto the nightstand where the other lies then goes to toss himself onto his bed. Rubbing his palms against his eyes, he wishes that he could undo the day from start to finish.

Going to bed the night before with Tyler’s cheeky **See you in our dreams? Haha. Stay alive this time.** text and one of his anxiety pills had made him feel on top of the world. But then the morning had dawned without any dreams at all, and his phone remained dark and silent. The entire day was spent dodging Ashley’s attempts at conversation, making no progress on the few art projects he had started, and constantly glancing at his phone.

Even now, where it’s pressed to his chest above his heart, it remains silent.

And when he finally receives a response, it’s like a defibrillator shock to his chest. Heart in his throat, he squints at the bright screen in the dimness of his room.

**sounds good. Gather more evidence tomorrow? My place this time? _(Received 4:41 PM)_**

And just like that, his bitterness with the entire day seems to melt away. He types a reply and sets his phone aside before sending it, resolving to wait at least ten minutes so that he doesn’t come across as desperate—but he is desperate. So fucking desperate.

But God forbid that someone sees him for what he really is. That’s a truly frightening thought. He wishes (not for the first time) that he could be the sort of person he is in his dreams: confident, brave, forgiving. Closing his eyes, waiting for the obligatory ten-minute text waiting period to be over, he thinks of the Treehouse, of the mystery that is about to be solved in their dreams. He wishes to be there, most of all.

That night when he falls asleep, Josh gets his wish.

#

Josh comes to with his fingers pressed against the rough wood of the first treehouse’s cover. He pauses, glancing down to see Tyler’s tanned face staring up at him. Tyler beams and his teeth aren’t the straightest, but his smile makes Josh’s chest get tight.

“Finally,” Tyler breathes.

“ _Right?_ ” He goes to push but stops again. “I don’t know what we’re going to find in here.”

“We won’t know until we find it,” Tyler points out helpfully. “Get going!”

Josh laughs. “Alright.”

He pushes. The cover slips back with the rough sound of wood-on-wood, disappearing from view. Josh squints but can see nothing inside the darkness. It’s pitch black, an inky depth that the forest’s light doesn’t seem to touch. There is no sound, no _smell_ even.

But Josh isn’t afraid. He reaches his hands up, clutching along the open hole and hoisting himself into the cool, dark room.

For a moment, he sits in the darkness. When he looks down to call out to Tyler, he sees that Tyler is gone. The rope ladder is empty. Then, Josh _does_ feel fear.

“Tyler?” He calls. There is no answer, no trembling of the rope that might even hint at his previous presence there. It is like he has been plucked from the earth. Screw the Treehouse. If Tyler is in trouble, then helping him is more important.

He calls out for the other boy again, going to lower himself back through the hole, but it is suddenly like someone has flicked on the light switch.

“Where are you going?” A voice asks, but the voice sounds far too young to be Tyler Joseph.

Josh hesitates to leave, blinking against the bright light. The room he’s in is relatively small and treehouse-sized, but the walls are whitewashed, bright and clean. There are no windows, but a bulb hangs from overhead emitting a white glow. In the middle of the room is the thick tree trunk, ladder rope leading up into the ceiling where another little trap-door rests. Sitting in the corner is a child, who looks to Josh to be seven years old at most, cross-legged with Pokémon cards spread out on the ground in front of him.

He looks just as started to see Josh as Josh is to see him. Whatever he was expecting in this room —a child isn’t it.

“Oh—hey. I lost my friend.”

“He’s here, just in a different time,” the boy answers. He has dark hair and eyes, a quivering, timid voice.

When he smiles, Josh sees crooked little teeth, and then it all makes sense.

This _is_ Tyler Joseph.

Slowly, Josh draws his feet back into the treehouse. The covering is there, and he slides it back into place, blocking out the sight of the forest beneath. Tyler watches from the corner with quiet, intrigued eyes.

Josh points to the ceiling where the ladder continues. “Can I keep climbing?”

“If you want to. But—if you have a minute—if you aren’t busy or something, do you know how to battle Pokémon?” Tyler asks, looking down at the cards scattered around a random, a child trying to make sense of what he doesn’t understand. “Nobody will teach me.”

Josh hasn’t played with cards in years, so he’s a little rusty but who’s he trying to kid _of course_ he remembers how to battle Pokémon. Unsure what he’s supposed to do, he moves to kneel in front of Tyler and match his cross-legged position. When he holds out his hands, the little boy gathers up the cards to hand them over. Josh straightens them and shuffles.

“How old are you?” Josh asks.

“Nine,” Tyler says. He’s older than Josh thought but so _small_. His expression is shy and serious.

“Nine? Gosh, you’re old. Have you retired, yet? Do you spend all your time golfing and painting still images of bowls of fruit?”

“ _No_ ,” Tyler says, showing his crooked little smile.

“If you say so.” Josh starts to deal the cards. “What are you doing out here?”

“In the Treehouse?” Tyler asks. “I come here sometimes when I’m scared. It’s safe in here. Slow.”

“What do you mean, when you’re scared? What are you scared of?”

“Kids at school,” Tyler mumbles. “They’re mean to me because I’m stupid and ugly.”

“Woah,” Josh says, heart aching. “That’s not cool. Do those kids say that?”

Tyler nods, gathering up his deck in his tiny, tanned hands. “Everybody says so.”

“It isn’t right for anyone to tell you those things. Things like that—being dumb, being ugly—that’s relative. Do you know what that means?”

“It means they’re related to each other. Like cousins.”

Josh laughs. God, little Tyler is so cute. “No—well, I guess that’s one meaning of the word. But relative means that some things have different meanings to everyone. You get to decide whether you’re dumb or you’re ugly. That doesn’t mean that other people can’t judge you, but you always get the final say about yourself.”

“So, if I say that I’m ugly and I’m stupid—and everyone else says so too—it’s definitely true?”

Tyler looks distraught, cards in his hand forgotten. His brown eyes are swimming with tears.

Josh’s heart clenches. His uplifting speech was (apparently) not uplifting in the slightest. “Um—well—I guess _you_ have the power.”

Tyler frowns. “That’s what I thought. That’s why I like the Treehouse. Sometimes it’s lonely, but most of the time I’m glad that it’s lonely.”

“You can’t stay here forever,” Josh says. “It’s scary out there, but it can be worth it, too.”

Josh isn’t even sure if he believes what he’s saying right now, but that’s something he’s learned through years of experience. Tyler is just a child, he should still have _hope_. Josh wants to give him hope. No one his age should seem so sad.

“I can too stay here forever,” Tyler says, squaring his little chin.

“Tyler,” Josh whispers, sadly. “You _can’t._ ”

The boy’s head cocks, confused. When he speaks, he gives Josh goosebumps.

“My name’s not Tyler,” he says, matter-of-factly. “It’s Blurryface."


	11. Fireflies and Simpler Times

Tyler watches Josh’s sneakered feet disappear up into the treehouse, teeth clenched with anticipation. This is _it_. They’re finally going to find out what’s inside the treehouse. _God,_ he thinks. _Maybe._ He holds his breath, waiting for the older boy to call out what he sees. Several long moments pass with no sound except for the general noises of the forest.

“Josh?” Tyler calls. There is no echo of his voice from inside the house. His arms are starting to shake with the effort of trying to hold the rope ladder steady. Sweat drips down the back of his neck, tickling between his shoulder blades. He squints into the darkness of the treehouse but can see nothing beyond. It’s as if Josh has completely disappeared. It’s as if the mouth of the treehouse is a black hole, and beyond it, nothing exists.

What would have unsettled him more: screams or this endless silence?

Heart pounding, Tyler climbs the last few rungs, shifting his hands to grasp at the wooden planks of the treehouse entrance. Limbs straining, he pulls himself up and into the cool darkness.

It’s like an entirely different place, sitting in the treehouse with his legs dangling into the forest.

This place seems untouched by the outside world, cool and without humidity, scentless and quiet. His eyes adjust to the darkness because it’s not _entirely_ dark. There are windows on each wall, and beyond, Tyler can see the stars and even the moon.

Standing silhouetted against the moon streaming through the far window is a figure. For a moment, he thinks that it’s Josh—but Josh doesn’t have a mohawk and the hair is some bleached, light color which is indistinguishable in the dim light, the strands stringy and wild. The man has his hands clasped on the windowsill, staring out into the forest night.

“Hello?” Tyler whispers. The man turns—and it _is_ Josh. The curve of his nose, the shape of his eyes are impossible to mistake, but this Josh is older. His face is thinner, with more lines around the eyes, and his lips are pulled down into a frown. He’s wearing a sleeveless shirt which bares his arms, and his right is tattooed from shoulder to wrist, a slather of shadows in the dim lighting.

“What are you doing here?” Josh’s voice is deeper, quieter.

“Looking for you.”

Josh shakes his head. “Nobody comes looking for me.”

“Aren’t you Josh?” Tyler asks, unsure.

This man looks like the older boy, but there’s no recognition in his tired eyes. When Tyler speaks his name, his eyebrows rise in surprise, though. “How do you know my name?”

“We’re friends, remember?” The words come easily enough even though Tyler isn’t sure if they are _friends_ really. The term seems inaccurate—he doesn’t know Josh well enough to consider him a friend—but it also seems inadequate. They share dreams. They share subconsciouses. They needed a term for _that_ so that Tyler could have a decent way to quantify their relationship.

“I’m sorry. I don’t think we’ve ever met—unless it was a long time ago. I’ve been here for so long, maybe I forgot.”

“How long have you been here?” The idea comes that maybe this Josh isn’t the Josh that Tyler knows. Perhaps inside this treehouse is some kind of alternate universe, a portal to another world. More alarming is the thought that perhaps this _is_ his Josh. What if time moves differently in the Treehouse and the few moments that the older boy spent inside ahead of him has passed as long as years?

What if Josh has just forgotten him? The thought is surprisingly _not cool_.

“Ever since I was little. Thirty years maybe. Time moves differently here, so it’s hard to tell. It’s night all the time. I haven’t seen the sun in so long that I’ve forgotten what it looks like. Sorry—I’m rambling. You’re the first real person I’ve had to talk to since I came here.”

There doesn’t seem to be anything threatening about this Josh, so Tyler lets himself move closer. They stand side by side staring out the window of the treehouse. The forest seems even prettier at night, bathed in moonlight. There is the twinkling of fireflies all around, yellow glowing pinpoints in the darkness that remind Tyler of childhood and simpler times.

“My name’s Tyler Joseph,” he says. “Do you remember me?”

Josh shakes his head. “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone named Tyler.”

Tyler can’t tell if this relieves or bothers him. “Then you must not be the Josh I’m looking for. Have you seen anyone come by right before me? Looks like you only younger?”

“I’ve never seen anyone else in here except for you.”

Tyler frowns. He glances at the tree trunk which pierces through the treehouse. The rope ladder is still, with no hint at anyone who might have passed through. Maybe Josh came through, saw himself, and just kept climbing?

“Why are you in here?” Tyler asks.

“I’m just here to catch my breath.” Josh runs his hands through his hair and Tyler can see that it’s a faded blue, borderline white. The curling strands have been straightened through the stress of constant dying.

“You’ve been catching your breath for thirty years?” Tyler asks, smiling weakly.

“Trying to,” Josh mutters. He glances out the corner of his eye. “I wasn’t always like this, you know. I never thought I’d be like this. When I was young, I used to think about how cool it would be to get older, you know? My hair would turn white, and I’d get to go everywhere on those scooters—you know the ones? Or I’d have a cane that I could hit people with. I’d have so many amazing stories, and my children and grandchildren would come over all the time just to spend time with me because I’d be like one of those ancient artifacts in a museum or something.”

“I’ve never thought of getting old that way. It sounds nice.”

Josh shakes his head sadly. He rubs tiredly at one eye. “I was wrong, though. I never thought about maybe getting old and being trapped in my body. I never thought of being trapped in my own house, or of having children and grandchildren who have their own lives and only think of me on holidays or my birthday.” He frowns, looking wrecked with sadness. “I thought I’d have more cool stories to tell, too. But I’ve only got sad ones.”

“You aren’t that old, yet, though,” Tyler says. “If you came here when you were young, you must only be in your thirties. That’s not old at all.”

“I know. I didn’t mean it the way you’re taking it—I’m sorry, I’m not very good with words. I don’t get a lot of practice anymore.”

“You’re doing fine,” Tyler soothes. “We’ve got time.”

“I just mean that I think about things differently now. I used to only see the good in everything, see the way that everything could turn out fine, but things don’t turn out the way you plan. Everything used to make sense, but when you get older, you get stranger. _It’s not the world that changes. It’s us._ Things don’t look the same anymore.” He points out the window. “Like this. The glowing. They used to look like fireflies once.”

Tyler glances and fireflies are all he sees, their lights coming and fading in a scattered, silent cacophony. There’s no other glowing that he can see.

“What do they look like now?” He asks.

“Eyes. Tiny, glowing eyes out there in the dark. They watch me.” Tyler shudders at Josh’s words, and the man’s lips twitch weakly. “It’s not as scary as it sounds. At least it doesn’t feel so lonely with them around. Sometimes, I think that I’m not the first person to be here and that maybe all those eyes are all the people who came before me and who will come after me.”

“Sounds profound,” Tyler mutters. “I dig it.”

“Me too.” Josh smiles weakly, and even tired and obviously uncared for, he’s a pretty good looking dude. If this is what Josh looks like when he’s older, then Josh is pretty fricking lucky.

“What about you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why are _you_ here? Did God send you to stop me?”

“Maybe,” Tyler says because he doesn’t really know why he’s here or why he’s anywhere. “Stop you from doing what?”

Josh taps a finger on the windowsill. Tyler sees that a pill bottle is standing on the ledge near the corner. When Josh nudges his hand against it, it tips off of the edge and out into the forest, silent from the rattle of pills. “I took them over an hour ago. You’re probably too late to save me.”

Tyler’s chest clenches. He feels like someone has punched him in the gut. This might not be _his_ Josh (it’s a little odd calling any Josh his own), but this is _a_ Josh. Tyler leans out the window like he might be able to snatch the pill bottle right out of the air, right out of the past and fill it back up. 

“Why would you do that, dude?”

“Don’t sound so sad. I should have done it a long time ago.” He takes a deep, shuddering breath. When he smiles at Tyler, it’s a little watery, eyes filled with the shimmer of tears that catch the glint of the moonlight and obscure the darkness of his eyes. “If you’re not in a rush, can you stay with me? I know I’m too old to be, but I’m afraid. I don’t want to die alone. That probably sounds stupid.”

“It’s not,” Tyler says, eyes stinging. “I just wish you hadn’t done that. I’m sick of watching you die, even if it isn’t real.”

Josh’s eyes widen. “This isn’t real?”

Tyler shakes his head, slowly. He doesn’t know the validity of this Josh. “I don’t think so.”

Josh is so quick to accept that between the two of them _his_ is the world which isn’t real. The man’s face crumbles. He turns away from the window and drops to his knees like he doesn’t have the strength to stand, slouching back against the wall of the treehouse and putting his head in his hands. “If it isn’t real then why am I so _scared?_ Why does this hurt _so much?_ ”

Tyler slides down to join him on the floor. Without the moonlight on them, he doesn’t have to try not to cry. As long as he keeps his voice even, Josh will never know.

“Good question,” Tyler says, pressing his fist against his sternum like it will help whatever pain he feels in his heart. “I don’t really know the answer.”

“I might not even be real,” Josh breathes. “And it still hurts. That’s not _fair._ ”

In the dark, Josh reaches for Tyler’s hand. He finds his knee first, but Tyler knows what he needs. He reaches out and they entwine fingers. Josh squeezes tightly and Tyler makes sure to match his grip. It’s not the first time they’ve held hands. Well—it’s not the first time he’s held hands with a Josh. It kind of feels like second nature, now. Josh has nice hands. Warm.

“Why did you take all those pills?” Tyler whispers. There’s no reason to keep his voice quiet, except that there’s a sanctity in the air of the treehouse tonight as if speaking too loudly might break the peace. It feels like he’s in a church, his voice naturally hushed with whatever awesome power resides here.

Josh shrugs, sniffing. He’s crying and isn’t as good at hiding it as Tyler is, but Tyler has had a lot of practice and maybe Josh hasn’t. When he speaks, his voice slurs like he has a mouth full of water. “I didn’t have anything better to do.”

“There are a million better things to do,” Tyler says.

“I know. I know. I just couldn’t think of them. Like how I know there are fireflies out there, but I can’t see them anymore. I’m sorry.” He cries harder, shaking with unabridged misery and maybe even regret.

“Don’t cry. It’s not too late to change your mind, maybe. Maybe if you—I don’t know. Maybe if you throw the pills up? I—”

“I’m too tired,” Josh slurs through his tears. He wipes at his cheeks. In the darkness, he’s just a vague shape and a warm body. Tyler wishes he could see him better. Josh’s head lolls weakly onto his shoulder, and the hair that presses against his cheek smells like bleach and feels like straw, but Tyler doesn’t mind, like, at all.

The sky outside of the treehouse is lightening, turning a deep blue. There is the gentle sound of birds just waking and replacing the call of crickets.

“I wish I was the Josh you were looking for,” Josh mumbles. “Look—the sun. It’s coming up.” 

Together they watch the first sunrise in thirty years while Josh’s breaths grow longer and slower and then stop altogether.

#

In another time and place, Josh draws a drumstick from the quiver on his back. Blurryface—it’s hard to even think of this little Tyler-lookalike as the evil demon who’s tried to kill Josh _twice_ — flinches away from the fast movement. The Pokémon cards fly from his hands and scatter over the floor as he puts his hand up in front of his face to ward off the expected blow.

Josh doesn’t hit him, though, just adjusts his grip on the stick tightly. There’s no way he could hurt (much less kill) a child, not even one who calls himself such a name. Whatever trick Blurryface is playing won’t last forever, though, and Josh plans to be prepared.

“What’s wrong?” Blurryface cries. “I’m sorry!”

“Why are you sorry if you don’t know what’s wrong?” Josh says. The soothing, gentle tone he inadvertently used to talk to Tyler (and other children he meets) is gone now. “What did you do?”

“I—I don’t know, but I must have done something. You’re mad.”

It’s really, really hard to be mad at such a fragile looking nine-year-old, especially one who starts to _cry_. Against his better judgment, Josh lowers the drumstick to his lap—but he maintains the harsh grip.

“I’m not mad,” Josh says. “I just—I know you.”

Blurryface sniffs. “Really?”

“Yeah, but you’re a lot different. The Blurryface I know is…not nice.”

The child sniffles. “I know I’m not. You probably want to leave now.”

He starts to gather up the cards as best as he can with his tiny hands, pausing to wipe his tears with his forearm, sniffing loudly.

“You’ll…let me leave?”

“If you want,” Blurryface mumbles. “Thanks for playing cards for a minute. I had fun.”

He’s torn. This is a trick; it must be a trick because to imagine Blurryface as anything less than his true, evil form is unsettling in the worst way. Bad guys aren’t supposed to feel vulnerable, they aren’t supposed to be human. They aren’t supposed to make Josh _think_ or _hurt_ for them.

“Do you know Tyler?” He asks.

“Oh yeah,” the boy says. His face seems a little brighter like someone has opened the window and let the light touch him. “I love Tyler. It’s a good thing that _he’s_ in control of our body because if he wasn’t, I’d probably mess things up even more than I already do.”

“If he’s in control, how do you mess things up?”

He meant to only ponder it in his head, but the words slip out through his lips anyway. This question seems to be too much for the young boy. Josh watches Blurryface’s eyes flicker back and forth while he thinks, his stare vacant. His lips are downturned and expression thoughtful, then concerned.

“I…don’t know. Bad things sort of happen, and—it’s my fault.”

“Who says?”

“Everybody.”

“Tyler?”

Blurryface doesn’t answer, just chews on the inside of his cheek, shrugging.

Josh doesn’t know what to think or feel about that. _This is just a trick,_ he reminds himself. He chants it in his head like a mantra, because this is a really, really good trick, and it nearly has him fooled.

He carefully stands, knees creaking at being bent under him for so long. The child has all the cards together now and is weakly trying to shuffle them, eyes morosely on his hands, refusing to even look at the older boy. Josh edges towards the rope ladder, keeping Blurryface in his sights at all time.

He climbs and hesitates, fingers brushing the wooden cover over the hole in the ceiling.

Blurryface isn’t even trying to pretend to play with the cards anymore now that Josh is leaving. 

He’s got his face in his hands, shoulders shaking with tears.

“Blurryface,” Josh says. The boy looks up, face red and wet.

“Just Blurry,” he mutters. “‘s shorter.”

“Blurry. If I’m free—maybe I’ll come back sometime.”

The boy looks at him with eyes wise beyond his years, still wet with tears. “I won’t get my hopes up.”

Nothing more to say, Josh pushes through the second cover and squints against the bright sunlight that streams in. He uses both hands to pull himself up and out as quickly as he can feeling vulnerable with leaving any part of his body unarmed and in front of Blurry.

He pulls himself out onto the flat roof of the treehouse and sees that Tyler is already there. He’s got his feet dangling off of the edge of the wooden roof and is staring out at the bright, lush forest. The atmosphere is nearly the opposite of the quiet, cool room that Josh was just in, and the screeches of cicadas and calling of birds seems noisier now in comparison.

When he catches sight of Tyler’s face, his eyes and cheeks are red from crying, an older version of the sad little boy left behind.

“Tyler,” Josh says. “Are you okay? I thought that I lost you when I was in there.”

“You didn’t,” he says. He rests his elbows on his knees, palming his closed eyes and tangling his fingers in his hair. The white shirt he’s wearing is still torn to shreds from the bridge, damp with sweat, and baring several inches of a skinny, tanned abdomen. Josh looks away, feeling disrespectful.

“Are you okay?” Josh asks carefully. He takes his spot next to the younger boy. Tyler crying makes him uncomfortable. Scratch that—people crying, in general, makes him uncomfortable, but Tyler is just _worse_. He wants to comfort him but doesn’t know how. It’s a helpless feeling. “What happened?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Tyler says. “And I’m not ready to go to the next treehouse just yet. I need a minute. Just…give me a minute.”

“Sure, man, whatever you need,” Josh mumbles. He bumps his knee against Tyler’s. _I’m here for you,_ that knee says in the way only inanimate body parts can. The other boy allows it, bumping his knee back. _Thanks,_ his knee replies.

The rest of the dream is spent soaking up the sun, sweating but still feeling so cold.

#

When he wakes, it’s to the sounding of his alarm clock. Josh has school today, and the thought makes him cringe. Eyes bleary with lingering exhaustion, he reaches out for the pills on his nightstand and dry swallows one, nearly choking on it. The doctor said to take them before bed, but this could be an emergency. This was _school_.

He’s still wearing a shirt—must have fallen asleep texting Tyler again—and it’s suffocating him. Josh pulls it off and throws it away into the darkness of his room. He lies there in the dark trying not to fall asleep again but kind of hoping he does fall asleep again. Time passes, noticeable only by the sun rising through the window. Josh really needs to make more effort to close his curtains before bed.

With the impending threat of his nosey mother coming in if she doesn’t hear him up and moving around, he gets out of bed and starts his day, feeling more like he’s headed to the guillotine than to the high school.

At breakfast, his mother looks like she’s about to fall asleep face first into her bowl of Cheerios. His younger siblings are eating in the living room with morning cartoons on, but Ashley is nowhere to be seen.

“Sick,” his mother says when he asks. “Cold, I think. She said her body aches. So try to keep the younger ones away from her, alright? The last thing we need is for everyone to catch it. We can’t afford to see the doctor anymore for a while.”

“I won’t be here after school. I’m going over to Tyler’s house.”

“Do you have to? Your sister is _sick_."

"She's fifteen. She can take care of herself. Abby and Jordan will probably just watch cartoons once the bus drops them off anyway. They won't even bother her."

His mother doesn't reply. She mechanically scoops another spoonful into her mouth, staring at her bowl like the secret of life is written in the sugary O's and it's not the secret she wanted it to be. She's not even eating the good kind of Cheerios. She’s eating the plain ones for Christ’s sake. Really. Josh couldn’t make that up if he tried.

 “I’ll text Ashley after school and make sure she’s okay. Alright?” Josh dumps the rest of his half-eaten cereal. He’s hungry, but he isn’t interested in hanging around his house any more than he has to. “I’m gonna get going.”

“Love you,” his mother says.

“You too,” Josh mumbles. He ruffles Jordan’s hair on the way out but the younger boy doesn’t even notice. Spongebob is on. Nice.

Outside, Josh puts his face up to the sun and feels the warmth there. He tries to soak it up and feel it in his bones, but it doesn’t go quite that deep. _Tyler will be at school,_ he consoles himself. _We’ve got our art project to work on together. It will be sick._

It’s just high school, but Josh can’t help but feel like he’s had a little vacation. A little medically and anxiety induced vacation that saw him lazy like a sloth-like with drugs—but a vacation nonetheless.

 _Quit complaining,_ he thinks as he crosses the street to keep on his route. His phone bears little weight in his pocket that reminds him: he’s going to Tyler Joseph’s house after school. How awesome is that? This is like, the super dramatic rising action in every soap opera and sitcom ever. All he has to do is make it through the school day.

Really, how bad could it be?


	12. The Anatomy of Bugs

School hasn’t even started and Josh has taken back all of that half-hopeful _how bad could it be?_ crap. It can be _really_ bad. Everyone at school has heard about the police pulling Josh out of class, which shouldn’t have been surprising considering the way rumors spread like the words were laced with gasoline.

For a guy with social anxiety, it is like a nightmare come to life; everyone is looking at him or whispering about him or asking him about what has happened on Monday. _I don’t want to talk about it,_ becomes his catchphrase, which only makes the gossip worse. Really, though, what else can he say? _The truth?_

Josh would rather have everyone believing that he’d spent the last few days in jail than to have them knowing about his issues. At least if he’s been to jail, he can be considered somewhat _cool_.

At this point, Josh would gladly accept ‘violent weirdo’ over ‘cool’ if it meant that everyone would stay away from him.

He catches sight of Tyler as the first bell rings to usher them into the school. Tyler is standing alone (something Josh noticed that he did more often than not, lately, leaving his basketball friends in order to wander away and be on his own), hands shoved deep into the pockets of his uniform dress pants. He makes for an impressive figure against the gloomy backdrop of the day.

His eyes seem shifty like he is watching for someone.

For a moment, Josh thinks that _someone_ is him, but when he catches Tyler’s eye and waves, Tyler looks away hurriedly and doesn’t glance his way anymore. That is probably a good thing because Josh’s face feels hot with embarrassment. God, why did he have to be such a loser?

Lamenting his existence while depositing his book bag into his locker, someone taps him on his shoulder. He turns (definitely not a little hopeful that it is Tyler, because come on it’s not like Josh is codependent or something, obviously he can go at least fifteen minutes without texting or looking at or thinking about the other guy) and sees a girl standing there. She is very short and petite, with long fair hair drawn back into a slick ponytail and one of those endless scarves that Josh thinks would make a handy noose for himself.

“What?” Josh asks, and alright maybe he doesn’t sound as _friendly_ as he could, but her timing sucks.

“You’re Josh Dun?” She asks.

“Yeah,” he says, suspicious. Girls don’t talk to Josh. It’s just a fact of the universe—they probably think he’s gay (as wrong as they are right). The few interactions he has with the opposite sex are so minimal and obligatory that there’s no chance for him to screw it up, but this girl hasn’t just dropped her pencil and she isn’t thanking Josh for holding open the door so _what does she want?_

If Josh hadn’t taken his anxiety medicine that morning, he’d probably be a stuttering mess, because this girl is pretty cute.

Maybe not Tyler Joseph cute, but it’s not really fair for him to judge people against the Tyler-Joseph-standard.

“I talked to Mr. Bryant and he suggested that I talk to you. I play the bells in music first period— but I’m really, really terrible. He says that I’ve got, like, no rhythm at all, and I was a little busy with some personal stuff the first few weeks of the semester so I don’t even know how to read the sheet music. Mostly I just hit the notes I _think_ are right—anyway, he said that you’re one of the best percussionists taking his course and that I should ask you to tutor me.”

Josh gapes. For a moment, he’d has no idea what the girl is talking about, even when she says the music teacher’s name (Josh knows him by _Jerry_ ), but when the pieces fall into place, he can’t help but feel a little flattered.

“You want me to tutor you?”

She smiles, looking a little unsure. “Yeah—unless you’re busy?”

Josh _is_ busy, busy with Tyler and with dreams about demons and treehouses, but that’s not a legitimate excuse. To turn down time with a beautiful girl (especially when he’s so good at percussion instruments) would be a crime, even if he’s never taught anyone anything in his whole life. So he says yes and they agree to meet after school every Wednesday and Friday starting tomorrow.

“Thanks so much,” she says, smiling. There’s the slightest gap between her two front teeth. “All my family thinks I’m stupid because I’m getting good grades in everything except a fine arts class. I really, _really_ appreciate it.” Josh blinks. Is she flirting with him?

Impossible.

The bell rings, warning them to get to class, and Josh has to scramble to sort his books out and into his arms. He narrowly makes it to his first period, brain still whirring with the weird start to his day.

His first-period class sucks.

His second-period class is worse. He’s so behind in math class that he’s worried _he’ll_ need a tutor.

Art class is a breath of fresh air, even if nothing thrilling happens. It’s enough that when he makes it into the classroom, Tyler has already arrived and pushed two desks together, their empty canvas sitting in front of him. The smile Tyler gives is sincere and untroubled, so whatever was bothering him this morning is a thing of the past. Nice.

They spend the period avoiding the obvious subject matter of their dreams and instead make plans for their art project. They’re going to paint the treehouse in acrylics. It won’t be easy combining their styles, but Josh supposes that’s sort of the point of the whole assignment.

The treehouse will be at the forefront of the painting with a forest scenery behind it. They brainstorm ideas for what each half of the treehouse will look like, and Tyler seems to lean heavily towards dark ideas, fixated on the idea that his half of the treehouse will be on fire.

The conversation isn’t life changing, but Josh is learning that even the simplest tasks are pretty sick when he’s doing them with Tyler. At moments like this, it’s easy to pretend that they’re friends. When the bell rings, Josh smiles at Tyler and the other boy returns it. Maybe they _are_ friends.

Josh should have known better.

#

Tyler is trying to keep track of the conversation at the lunch table. It used to be something he was good at, that is to say that it used to be natural and require no effort. There were days when in-depth discussion of basketball and girls and school and gossip could entertain him, but everything seems to be different since last May when Tyler had his _accident_.

He feels himself drifting away from the friends he’s known since he was a child. He wishes there was some easy way to reconnect, some How-To book he could check out for three weeks at the library. More than anything, he wishes that he wasn’t changing, that he could remain stagnant with these boys and girls forever so as to always feel the kinship and belonging that they used to give him.

But it’s too late for things like that. A person can change, but they cannot ever _change back_. All Tyler can do is pretend, which would be easier if he wasn’t feeling so easily distracted. He can’t help having things on his mind, things that definitely aren’t (but totally might involve) a weird kid from his art class.

Suddenly, a shadow falls over him and his untouched tray of food. The conversation at the table has died, and when Tyler glances up, his mouth goes dry.

Because it’s Josh.

“Hey,” Josh says, giving his squint-and-smile, nodding to the other boys at the table.

“Um—hey?” A boy says from Tyler’s right because Tyler can’t seem to find his voice.

Warning bells start going off in Tyler’s head because Josh does not belong at this table. Josh is drawing attention to himself—and inadvertently to Tyler also. This is Not Good. Someone elbows him because Josh is staring _straight at him_ , looking equal parts concerned and uncomfortable. The younger boy’s mind starts to whir, trying to find the best course of action to remedy and diffuse this situation.

Swallowing, Tyler manages, at last, to reply: “Hi?”

“I forgot to ask during art class: are we still cool for after school?”

The entire table is watching like this is some kind of drama being played out for their eyes, a private play, like Tyler’s going to draw a dagger from his bag, speak some dramatic poetry, and plant it in his own bosom or something. This is some kind of _entertainment_ for them. Now that Tyler thinks about it, that whole knife-to-the-bosom thing didn’t sound half bad.

The terrible solution presents itself immediately to Tyler, who has always been quick at thinking on his feet.

“For your tutoring? Yes,” Tyler says, keeping his face straight. It isn’t a conscious decision to blow Josh off—it’s just natural. That thought doesn’t make Tyler feel any better, even as the words fall from his lips like involuntary, acrid poison. “Don’t forget your math book. I’ll meet you in the library.”

It feels like the worst thing Tyler’s ever done: lying to make himself look cooler, lying to pretend like his association with Josh is just business. For a moment, Josh looks confused, but then the realization creeps over his face, melting away his smile. His eyebrows smooth out from their furrowed expression and he looks so blatantly _disappointed_ —disappointed in the situation?

 Disappointed in Tyler?

“Right,” Josh says. “Thanks again. I’m so _stupid_ when it comes to math. I don’t know what I’d do without you, _bro_.”

“No problem,” Tyler manages to speak through lips that feel numb.

“See you at the library.” With those last emotionless words, Josh turns on his heel and stalks back to his own lunch table with the other fine arts students. There’s no tray in front of him. He folds his hands on the table and rests his head there, unmoving for the rest of the lunch period.

“Who was that?” One of the point guards asks.

“Nobody. Just someone the calc teacher asked me to tutor. It’s not a big deal.”

“You're tutoring a felon? What a saint you are, Joseph,” another boy mutters and Tyler tries not to let his face redden. He's heard the rumors going around since Monday, but he hasn't done much to combat them. Tyler glances at Josh again only to see that he still hasn’t moved and is actually being _poked_ by another kid at his table, as if Josh is some dangerous animal who might have died of exposure. Tyler pushes his tray away, appetite gone for good.

“That’s me,” he says weakly. “Saint Joseph.”

#

Tyler spends the rest of the day feeling sick to his stomach. He mucks everything up in French class, failing a quiz. It’s hard to think of conjugating verbs when he might have messed up the chance to do a little dream traveling with Josh.

He’s pretty much gotten over the trauma of watching dream-Josh die, feeling a little like a single guy just getting over a bad break up, ready to jump back into the dating scene. Only by ‘jump back into the dating scene’, he means sleep with Josh (not _sleep_ with Josh, just him), and by ‘pretty much over,’ he means that he refuses to think of it and therefore doesn’t get upset by it.

Same thing.

Whoever said avoidance wasn’t the way to solve one's problems probably wasn’t as good at it as Tyler is.

Dreaming with Josh is just such a strange, awesome experience. He hopes that Josh has had time to write down his dreams, and most importantly, the days he has the dreams and anything odd about them that he can remember. Tyler can’t understand why sometimes they share dreams and other times they don’t. There must be some type of environmental factor that affects their dream sharing, but he hasn’t been able to figure it out. Maybe Josh is the key.

Of course, that’s if Josh wants to even acknowledge Tyler’s existence anymore. The younger boy wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t. What he did in the cafeteria was blatantly Not Cool, possibly worthy of exile and flogging.

When the final bell rings, Tyler barely manages to make it to Zack’s locker to warn him that they might have a guest on the car ride home.

“That means no embarrassing stories, no making me look bad, no mentions of my talents for lip syncing to Celine Dion. Got it?”

“Who is she?” Zack asks cheekily.

“Celine Dion?”

“No, this girl you’re bringing home.”

Tyler stares blankly. “His name is Josh.”

He doesn’t notice the odd look on Zack’s face because now Tyler has to sprint to the other end of the hallway and hopefully reach Josh’s locker before the older boy leaves. Elbows are flying while he pushes through straggling students—don’t these kids have someplace to _be?_

When he reaches Josh’s locker, it’s closed and there’s no sight of the boy. He looks down both directions of the hall to see if he can spot him walking away, but there’s no head of curly dark hair. At least, not the one that Tyler wants so desperately to see.

 _Look what you did,_ a voice in his head thinks. _If you treat good people like shit, they don’t keep coming back, Tyler._

“Tyler,” a voice calls. 

When he turns, his heart clenches.

There’s Josh, leaning against the wall beside the library. He’s clutching his math book, book bag resting in a heap on the floor by his feet.

“Oh. Hey. There you are.”

“This is where you told me to be,” Josh says. There’s a little too much bitterness in his tone for Tyler to mistake it as anything else.

He winces. “I’m sorry I said those things at lunch. I just—I panicked, I guess.”

“I get it,” Josh says coolly. “Should we wait in the library until everyone is gone so that no one sees us leaving together?”

Tyler is so relieved that Josh still wants to hang out and try _gathering evidence_ that he doesn’t even feel the sting of his pride when he speaks: “No. I’m sorry for what I said. I shouldn’t have said it, and I was wrong. I don’t care if people see us together.”

Josh looks skeptical. He picks up his book bag to sling it over his shoulder and motions with an open palm for Tyler to lead the way.

Tyler turns, swallowing hard. He really doesn’t care if people see them together—but his eyes still scan the hallway to see if anyone he knows has stuck around after the bell. The relief he feels at seeing no other basketball players or cheerleaders around makes him feel ashamed.

“I drive my brother home from school, so you’ll have to sit in the back,” Tyler says on the way out to the student parking lot.

“Doesn’t matter to me,” Josh mutters.

And then Josh Dun is sitting in his car.

Zack and Josh greet each other friendly enough when Tyler introduces them, Josh reaching into the front seat to grasp his brother’s hand in a warm clasp. After that, they all lapse into silence. Tyler doesn’t even turn the radio on, mostly because he knows that most of his saved radio stations might embarrass him. The other boys at school listen to rap or rock. Tyler listens to pop and techno and oldies and alternative and even classical on Thursdays when they play Rachmaninoff’s greatest hits off of a station in Grove City.

 Tyler’s having a hard time looking away from the rear view mirror where he has a perfect view of Josh staring morosely out the window, curls wild and untamed. Didn’t Josh wear hair gel or something? That might help with the Medusa hair. Then again, Tyler kind of _liked_ the Medusa hair thing, so—

“Stay in your lane, Tyler,” Zack mutters.

Face red, Tyler’s eyes snap back to the road where he has been gently drifting into oncoming traffic. He clears his throat and doesn’t say anything, resolving not to look back at the other boy anymore. He’d have plenty of time to stare at Josh when Josh was in his house. In his bedroom.

Tyler shakes his head. What a weird thought. He rubs at his sternum where a strange feeling flutters, half the feeling of indigestion and half the feeling of trying to make his second free-throw to take the lead at a basketball game. Is he getting sick? Josh totally got him sick.

His eyes flicker back to the rearview mirror. The boy doesn’t look sick anymore, though, not exhausted and faintly out of it like he had when Tyler visited him on Tuesday. He looked good. 

Good as in healthy—not as in—

Zack gently reaches out and grabs the wheel, turning it ever so slightly to bring them back on course. Tyler’s face reddens _again_ , and he pretends not to notice the concerned (amused?) expression on his brother’s face.

Somehow, they make it home in one piece without Tyler causing a six-car-pileup. As he gets out, opening the back door to snag his book bag from the back floorboard, he can’t help but feel a little nervous. His house is nice, large and expensive and well maintained and everything an upper-middle class family should have. Yet Tyler can’t help but to feel like Josh might take one look at it and judge him.

But Josh’s face seems blank, borderline unimpressed. Tyler leads him through the foyer and up the stairs to the bedroom he technically shares with Zack (though Zack spends more of his time sleeping on the futon in the basement, the same place where he heads as soon as he is in the house).

“My parents and siblings should be home any minute, but they won’t bother us,” Tyler says, shoving his bag into his closet and undoing the top button of his dress shirt. He feels a little like he’s suffocating.

Josh is standing in his room, taking it all in. It makes Tyler feel a little awkward, but he supposes that _he_ had looked at Josh’s without the other boy’s permission. This was only fair. An eye for an eye and all that.

The room is large to accommodate two teenage boys, but Tyler feels like he has it all to himself. The navy colored walls are mostly unadorned, unlike Josh’s. The taupe carpet has been freshly vacuumed, as Tyler had taken precautions the night before to clean and make things presentable. The terror of Josh seeing his messy room had forced Tyler out of bed (depressed or not). After he’d had the strength to message the older boy back, he’d spent the rest of the night like a guy possessed, flitting from one end of the room to the other cleaning and disinfecting and neutralizing any teenager-ly _scents_.

The ukulele is in a case in the back of Tyler’s closet along with his book of poems and tentative songs. It’s really the only thing that he was afraid of the other boy seeing.

“Nice room,” Josh says, stalking to the window in his socks. For some reason, the boy had insisted on taking off his shoes in the foyer, even though his shoes weren’t dirty. Outside the window is a view of the concrete basketball court that Tyler spends most of his time practicing on.

“Thanks,” Tyler says, breathing a little easier. He doesn’t know why he needed Josh’s approval— he just _did_. “So. Have you been writing down the dreams?”

“Duh,” Josh says. He shrugs off his bag and goes digging through it, removing a journal with a black cover. “You don’t know what I went through trying to find one of these notebooks. My sister was the only one in the house who had any to spare. She writes poems, so she keeps a ton of them around.”

“Your sister that I met Tuesday?”

“Yeah. Ashley.” He frowns. “Speaking of Ashley—I’m supposed to text her. She’s home sick.”

Josh weasels his phone out from his pocket and texts, thumbs flying across the screen. Meanwhile, Tyler takes the notebook and begins to flip through it. All the dreams seem to be in place, with details that he’d like to look over more closely without Josh’s potential scrutiny. All the dreams except for the dream last night.

“Josh?” He asks. “What did you dream about last night? In the first treehouse?”

He doesn’t glance up from his phone, but Tyler sees that his fingers are fumbling, hesitating, hovering in the air above the screen. “The first treehouse? Oh. Um. Nothing. I just—climbed through, really. What about you?” 

Tyler frowns. “Um—same.”

“Then why were you crying?”

Tyler’s face gets hot. “I wasn’t.”

“Bro. You totally were.”

“Well, I guess I was just—disappointed. All that build up and then just climbing through. I took it as a personal slight.”

Josh hums in response. Tyler collapses on his bed, heart pounding with his lie. _Why_ did he lie to Josh? So stupid.

He props his neck up with pillows so that he can continue to flip through Josh’s notebook of dreams. Reading about everything from the other boy’s perspective is fascinating. Josh isn’t a particularly moving writer, but it’s clear that he wrote everything carefully and deliberately.

“Okay, sorry about that,” Josh says, tossing his phone into his bag. “So, we’re gathering more evidence today?”

“Do you think you can fall asleep?” Tyler asks.

“Bro. Meds. Like I said, I’m pretty much always on the verge of falling asleep these days.”

Tyler shifts until he’s sitting up, choosing to leave Josh’s dream notebook on the nightstand.

“What is your medicine for again?”

“I didn’t say,” Josh says enigmatically. “You want me to take this bed?”

He points to Zack’s. Tyler doesn’t know why he thought they’d share the same bed again—that’s kind of weird for two guys to do—but he _did_ and now he feels a little thrown off.

“That’s fine. It’s my brother’s but he hasn’t slept on it since, like, Easter or something. The sheets are clean.”

Josh lies down, giving a dramatic exhale. Then, he groans. “This mattress is the most comfortable mattress I’ve ever been on. This is like, a cloud—or mashed potatoes—or cotton candy. Maybe I’m just hungry.”

Tyler snorts, shifting his pillows around to get comfortable. “Maybe you can stay for dinner.”

Silence falls over the room as both boys close their eyes. Tyler takes several deep, long breaths, drawing from his exhaustion. He hears rustling from across the room and slits his eyes open to see Josh is removing his vest uniform before reclining back again into the pillows. Tyler squeezes his eyes shut.

And falls right into the dream.

#

“Ready?” Josh asks. The two of them have crammed together side by side on the rope ladder, both resting a hand on the wooden covering to the second treehouse. They’re pressed together from chest to ankle and it’s a precarious position on such an unstable ladder. They’re so close together that Tyler can smell Josh’s sweat (which is, surprisingly, not as unpleasant as one might think).

“Ready,” Tyler pants, straining his muscles to keep still and not throw them off the ladder and back down into the forest. Josh beams, flashing his pretty teeth and the gentle muscles in his forearm flex as he adjusts his touch on the cover. This time, they’re going in together. There will be no getting lost.

“On three. One, two, three—”

Instead of the darkness that he’d been expecting, Tyler is blinded by bright, white light flooding from the opening of the second treehouse. It’s bright enough to burn through his tightly clenched eyelids until he throws a forearm across his eyes to block it out, but his grip on the ladder comes loose and he’s going to _fall_ —

—but instead, a hand reaches from the light and wraps strong, cold fingers around his forearm, pulling him in. His shoulder is wrenched painfully, but it’s not as painful as when his head connects with the lip of the opening. The pain knocks the breath from his lungs, and he doesn’t go unconscious like everyone does in the movies, it’s slower, blackness blossoming until there is nothing to see or feel.

When he comes to, he is paralyzed. He’s had dreams like this before. Usually they come just as he’s falling asleep, staring at the darkness of his ceiling, heavy with exhaustion but plagued with insomnia. Suddenly, he will be unable to move, unable to blink or breathe or open his mouth to _scream_. The dream paralysis lasts for an indiscernible amount of time, and Tyler decides that maybe that’s what hell is like: being trapped inside your own head.

Tyler’s eyes are open, but instead of staring at the shadowy ceiling of his bedroom, he’s looking at a bright, silvery ceiling, glistening with foreign machinery and polished to shine. Positioned over his torso and just south of the center of his vision is a simple light on a long, maneuverable neck.

He feels the bite of restraints around his wrists and ankles and the cool metal underneath him. He can’t tell if he’s clothed from the waist down, but he definitely isn’t wearing a shirt.

A face appears above him, leaning over the table he rests on and into his line of vision. The face is his own. He tries to scream but just draws a shaky breath through his parted lips. Blurryface squints his eyes like he’s staring down at a bug, recently undiscovered.

“Look what I caught, like a mouse in a trap,” Blurry says. He glances up at something outside of Tyler’s minimal field of vision. “Anesthesia is wearing off. I think we should go ahead with the testing, Spooky.”

Another creature leans his head. When Tyler tries to move his eyes, they obey his command lazily, but what he sees doesn’t comfort him. It’s an _alien_. An alien mask, to be more precise, the kind that is on sale at Halloween and are 80% off on November first. Green nylon fabric presses up against the features of the man beneath, great, black eyes bulging and slanted.

“Prepare the tools, and do it quickly. He’ll be talking soon, and after the talking comes the moving and the walking and the struggling.” 

Spooky moves away, and when Tyler strains, he gets a glimpse of the rest of the room: riddled with screens showing things he doesn’t understand and buttons blinking in a pattern that makes no sense to him.

_A spaceship._

Spooky bumps into something and tools go scattering across the floor. Tyler flinches at the noise, but Blurry just sighs and rolls his eyes. He leans over to look at the prone boy. “Your friend is useless. Is there anything he can do right? What do you think, Spooky? Can you do anything right?”

“No,” ‘Spooky’ says. Tyler’s heart sinks, because, of _course_ , that’s Josh’s voice.

“Say it,” Blurry demands. “Say that you’re useless.”

“I’m useless,” Spooky says. He’s picked up the tools, placing them on a surgical tray that he wheels to the side of the table.

“Jshhhhhh,” Tyler slurs, tongue lolling weakly inside his mouth. Spooky makes no reaction. He passes something over Tyler’s torso into Blurry’s waiting hand. It’s a scalpel, glinting in the light, and then a great big pair of shears that don’t look like they’re for cutting through construction paper. Tyler groans, long and low.

“Quiet, you,” Blurry says pleasantly, pinching Tyler’s cheek harshly until he winces. When he speaks next, he’s tugging on a pair of latex gloves, snapping them in place against his wrists. “We have to try to understand these creatures, Spooky. I know you’re a little slow, but try to keep up, baby. We need to figure out what makes them tick. We have to really _get in there_ and see what they’re made of.”

“It barely looks human,” Spooky says, muffled through the cloth of the mask. His voice is quiet and without intonation, as he glances down at Tyler on the table.

“It isn’t,” Blurryface says coldly. He presses the scalpel to the tender skin between the halves of Tyler’s ribcage.

“Don’t,” Tyler slurs. He flexes his fingers and toes, feeling them respond weakly. There’s no chance of pulling against the restraints, though—not yet, at least. He needs to stall Blurryface for as long as he can. “Please don’t.”

“You can beg if you’d like,” Blurry says frankly. He presses his hand against Tyler’s chest, latex on skin. Even through the thin layer, he can feel that Blurryface _burns_ with heat. “But it won’t change anything.”

“Why’re you doing this?” Tyler asks.

“Don’t pretend like you don’t want this,” Blurryface hisses. “No! No—don’t speak! I know all your thoughts, your feelings, your secrets. You wonder why all the people in your life can’t see the real you, but you’re _grateful_ that they can’t, because if they could, they would all hate you, and you’re right Tyler. A bug like you can’t be loved. This skin is just a disguise.

“On the outside, you’re all sugar and spice and everything nice, but on the inside, you’ve got _me_. All your evil, all your sins that you try to hide are known to me. You can’t hide from me. Quit trying to play me for a fool.” He lets his mouth trail close enough to Tyler’s ear so that his breath brushes the shell. “After everything you’ve done, we both know that you deserve this.”

Tyler feels paralyzed all over again, like whatever anesthesia he’s on is discovering its second wind and has taken back his tongue. Blurryface pats his head, muttering. _Good boy._

He goes to make the first cut with the scalpel but hesitates and smiles. “I guess the training wheels should come off eventually. Would you like to make the first incision, Spooky? It’s time to start earning your keep here. At least—in ways other than the ones you _have been.”_ Blurry snickers.

Spooky takes the scalpel and assumes Blurryface’s position, pressing the blade against Tyler’s chest. He flinches, violently, almost enough to jostle the blade away. The two exchange a look above him.

“For Christ’s sake, toughen up, Spooky. It’s like I said: the anesthesia is wearing off. Be quick about it.” Blurry leans towards Tyler’s face to smile gently and stroke his fingers through the prone boy’s hair. “Try to think happy thoughts. This might hurt a bit.”

But it hurts more than a bit. It’s the worst pain Tyler’s ever felt, and thrashing against the restraints just makes it worse, just makes Blurry put all his weight against holding him down and in place. It’s a small consolation that he can’t see what is happening to him because the joy on his lookalike’s face says everything he needs to know.

When Spooky passes the scalpel off, he’s red up to the elbows with Tyler’s blood. Tyler is no longer struggling, feeling lackadaisical and sluggish from loss of blood. Blurryface passes the shears and Tyler wishes he was dead so that he didn’t have to hear the sound of his ribs cracking.

He wishes he was dead so that he was numb to the pain.

He wishes he was dead so that he could stop thinking about how Blurry was right.

On cue, Blurryface throws out a hand to stop Spooky’s movement. “Quit, dummy. There it is.”

He reaches into Tyler’s chest. There is one more ache, a twisting that reverberates through his body and all his bones, like when he bumps his elbow on a desk at school and feels it up his whole arm. Then, there is nothing—no pain, no more fear. Blurryface holds up what he’s plucked from Tyler’s chest.

It’s a heart, made of glass instead of flesh. It beats gently even outside of the warmth of his chest. With each weak pump there comes a quiet sound, the tinkle of glass shards being swept into the dustbin. It is glossy red and (Tyler acknowledges dimly) an impressive, impossible piece of art. “Where’s the other half?” Blurry asks, face twisting with fury. He glances up at the large, glossy eyes of the alien mask. “There’s only half here. Where’s the other half?” Spooky doesn’t answer, just hangs his head, shrinking in on himself.

“What did I say? Useless,” Blurryface mutters, reaching across the table to flick at Spooky’s forehead. The alien flinches away like he was expecting a vicious blow. Blurry lets out a breath through his teeth, making it whistle. His angry expression melts away into a blank one, and he steps out of sight. When he returns, it’s with a towel to throw over Tyler’s gaping chest, heart nowhere to be seen. “Clean up, Spooky. We’re done here.”

Spooky nods morosely and turns away. That’s when Blurry lunges around the table, scalpel slipping free from where he’s hidden it in his sleeve to press against the alien’s neck. Josh’s hands scrabble against Blurry’s forearm, but they’re both still slick with blood and his grip slips. When Blurry moves them, they’re outside of Tyler’s vision. Weak, he struggles to turn his head to watch.

“On your knees,” Blurry says.

There comes the thud of flesh on flesh and the clatter of a body collapsing. Then Blurry gets to work, only occasionally passing by Tyler’s vision to switch tools. Bit by bit, Tyler’s head lolls to look, but he mostly just has to listen to it. Wet, muted sounds and sharp snaps of bone. Josh makes no noises, and Tyler doesn’t know if he’s dead or just unconscious.

Tyler’s head finally makes it around in time to watch Blurryface pluck Josh’s heart from his chest. It’s twice the size Tyler’s was, glass crinkling with each beat, tinted bubblegum pink. When he glances over to see Tyler looking, he beams, holding up the heart like he’s a child and it’s a fish he’s just reeled in from the lake, like he wants Tyler to take a snapshot and put it up on their refrigerator.

He stands from where he has straddled Josh and Tyler refuses to look at the gory mess of his friend’s still body. When Blurry reappears, he has a container the size of a shoebox, wooden, tucked under his arm. “I’d stay to socialize, Ty, but I’m really pressed for time.”

He plants a kiss on Tyler’s cheek before drawing back his fist and hitting him in the same spot, hard.

#

It’s enough to startle him awake. Josh is already up across the room, sitting on Zack’s bed in a pose of defeat, elbows on his knee and face in his hands. He looks up at the sound of Tyler’s waking, and his face is wrecked with horror.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, voice gravelly. “I didn’t have any control. I couldn’t stop myself. Those things he said to you—is that true? Is that how you feel? Like a bug?”

Tyler can’t speak yet. He puts his hand over his heart just to see if it’s still there, but even when he feels its beating, he doesn’t feel sure. He’d have to open himself up to see.

“This is so fricking messed up,” Josh says.

And Tyler can’t help but agree.


	13. Catch-22

Ashley doesn’t tell lies.

Which is sort of a lie because alright, yeah, _duh_ she tells lies sometimes. There are some lies that are just part of the teenage repertoire, passed down through the ages: I’m fine, I slept great, nothing’s wrong. Those lies are allowed though, because if she says them enough, she’s pretty sure they’ll transcend the laws of verity and become truths. All the teachers at school say practice makes perfect, or something like that.

So, some lies are okay, but the fact remains that Ashley Does Not lie to her brother.

Lying to her parents is one thing. They’re older and less understanding. Not to mention, it’s hard to lie to people who don’t really talk to you. With two younger siblings, Ashley isn’t often in the forefront of her parents’ minds. She’s old enough to make her own meals, do her own homework, and brush her teeth twice a day without being told to. Most of the conversation she has with her parents are the mandatory interactions: Good Morning, Pass the mashed potatoes, Goodnight. She doesn’t feel bad about not being closer with her parents (alright, maybe she feels bad about it sometimes, but usually just at night when _everything_ feels bad)—anyway, it’s just the way things are.

Her lack of familial relationships does not really bother her because she used to have Josh. Josh, who was never too busy to talk to her or make time for her. Things have been different ever since Josh got sick (maybe since before then, too), because now the one person she feels closest to never seems to have the time for her.

 _He’s sick, Ashley,_ a little voice in her head says. _He needs time for himself. How can you be angry at him for not taking time for you when he’s_ sick?

It is wrong, but that doesn’t mean she can help feeling that way. The voice in her head doesn’t care about logistics though. Did all people have a voice in their head, a voice that liked to find all the things one didn’t want to think about and _linger_ on them? Ashley doesn’t know. People don’t say such things—to her or to each other.

Mostly to her. A lack of general interaction with the human population makes it easy not to tell any lies, but all of that comes to an end Thursday when she stays home sick from school.

Proclaiming herself sick was only half the lie. Ashley was sick in a way—sick in her heart, which made her feel a little sick everywhere else too. She never knew that getting out of bed could be so difficult, and the tears that come to her eyes when she drags herself into the kitchen to tell her mother that she doesn’t feel up to going to school today aren’t fake. They aren’t lies, even if part of her feels like she’s lying. She’s not sick like Josh who had to go to the _hospital_. She’s not sick like Abby gets every spring when the Midwestern rain comes. Whatever it is that’s wrong with her doesn’t feel serious enough to be deemed an illness—but it’s real.

Real enough that even her little brother takes notice. Jordan comes into her room, breath smelling like bubblegum from his toothpaste, and does his usual ritual he performs when someone in their family is sick or feeling sad. He tells a joke.

“Hey Ashley, what does a nosey pepper do?”

She can’t even open her mouth to speak.

“It gets jalapeno business.” He bursts into childish laughter, and she manages a strained smile before he leaves for school.

Mostly, she spends the whole morning in bed, stuck within her own thoughts. Halfway through the day, Ashley is so lonely that she wanders through her house like maybe being close to the places her family usually resides might help, like there will be residual energy from them or she’ll that tingly, static like feeling ghosts give off when you walk through them.

Ashley’s afraid that she might be the ghost, though.

She sits on the couch in the living room and pretends like her parents and siblings are there to watch television with her. She goes downstairs into the basement and sits on the couch facing Josh’s drum set, closing her eyes and pretending he’s there adjusting the drums, preparing to play her something ‘totally sick.’

The ritual doesn’t help at all. By the time Abigail and Jordan are dropped off by the bus, Ashley has sequestered herself back into her room. Her siblings are both under twelve, but they take great efforts to take care of her, building her a nest of blankets in the living room so that they can all watch television together and even trying to cook soup for her in the microwave since Jordan isn’t allowed to use the stove. They insist on her choosing the tv channel even though she knows they’re missing prime cartoons.

Their kindness hurts. It physically _hurts_ , like someone has their hand in her chest and is digging their nails into her heart. Kindness hurts, and that’s how she knows that whatever’s going on with her is Not Normal. She needs help. She needs to talk to someone.

She needs to talk to Josh, and like the thought of his name summons him, her phone buzzes on the coffee table. Jordan hands it to her (actually taking efforts to not be nosey for once). It’s Josh.

**hey mom told me to check on you. are you okay? ( _Received 3:55 PM)_**

And this is it. He’s asking her explicitly if she is alright, and the answer is a resounding fundamental NO. There’s never been a time in her life where she hasn’t been able to confide in her older brother, whether it be boy troubles in middle school or girl troubles her freshman year, whether it’s about how mom and dad give all their attention to the younger siblings or how sometimes she’s afraid they’re hoping Abigail turns out to be a better daughter than she has. She can trust Josh.

Yet she _can’t_ tell him. It feels impossible, like her thumbs have gone numb. She is dying to tell him, but she feels as if she might die if she does. It's the worst Catch-22, because it leaves her with one option.

She lies to her brother.

**Yeah i'm fine. _(Sent 4:01 PM)_**

Maybe all she needs is a little push. Maybe she just needs Josh to see through her, to press against the front she’s built around herself (and God, she feels so fragile, like one little text might be all it takes for her to spill her guts).

Maybe Josh’s reply is just another nail in her coffin.

**awesome. g2g now i’m with a friend _(Received 4:03 PM)_**

“What’s wrong?” Jordan asks her from his side of the blanket-nest. He is too young to look so serious, and when she glances at Abigail she sees that even the youngest looks shaken by something.

Ashley just shakes her head, because she doesn’t trust her voice.

“You’re crying,” Jordan says.

She reaches up to touch her wet cheeks, but feels nothing. She feels numb. She looks at her siblings, sees the worry and the responsibility they seem to have to take care of her and she _fears_. She fears that one day they might grow up to feel this way too, and that would be the Worst.

“’s nothing,” she mumbles, picking up the remote. “Let’s see what cartoons are on instead.”

“Hey Ashley,” Jordan whispers. “What do lawyers wear to court?”

“I don’t know.”

“Lawsuits.”

“That’s a good one,” she whispers back. Instead of laughing, he just frowns and turns back to the TV. They watch cartoons until their parents get home, at which time Ashley slips back into her bedroom and under the blankets to avoid their stares.

#

Tyler tries to invite Josh to stay for dinner, but Josh declines. Tyler says they can go out to eat if he’d prefer, but Josh declines still, for two reasons: he feels the creeping up of his anxiety like the dread of keeping his back to the open closet door at night. As much as he’d like to have a meal with Tyler, he can’t. Anxiety makes those choices for him.

Also, he can tell that Tyler wants to be alone but is just too polite to say so.

The other boy does insist on giving him a ride home though, and Josh accepts that. Columbus is a big city, and he wasn’t looking forward to the long walk, even though he probably could have used it to sort out his thoughts from the dream and their brief talk together after.

“What does it _mean?_ ” Josh had asked.

“Blurryface,” Tyler muttered, pacing a hole in the floor. “He’s trying to get in my head.”

“You never really explained this Blurryface dude. What’s up with him?”

“I don’t want to talk about him. I’m not ready to talk about it yet.” Like a switch flipped off in a brightly lit room, Tyler’s entire face changed, draining of emotion and light. When he spoke, his voice was quiet and controlled and it did nothing to assuage Josh’s curiosity.

On that note, there wasn’t much left to say. Tyler had made his half-hearted offer for Josh to eat with him, and at Josh’s polite denial, they had both crept downstairs, successfully avoiding the Joseph family, save for a younger boy who Tyler had obviously threatened wordlessly to keep his mouth shut while they made their escape.

The drive home is silent, which Josh doesn’t necessarily have a problem with. He’s got a lot to think about, quietly flipping through his dream journal, squinting in the brief light that floods the car when they drive past lampposts, going over every available section he has on the thing that calls itself Blurryface.

“Make sure you write down your dream,” Tyler urges quietly when he drops Josh off. “I’m going to do more research tonight on dreams and dreaming. If you think of anything, text me.”

“Alright,” Josh says. “See you at school tomorrow.”

Tyler nods his head, looking distracted at the shadows of the gardenia bushes planted south of the porch. “See you sooner than that. ‘night.”

Josh hadn’t even thought of that. In a matter of hours, he’ll be falling asleep, and he’ll have to face the things inside the treehouse again. He tries to tell himself the same thing his parents used to tell him when he was young and would have a nightmare: it’s just a dream, and dreams can’t hurt you. Josh is learning though that dreams _can_ hurt. Just because something isn’t real doesn’t mean it can’t hurt.

His family is in the living room watching television, Jordan kneeling at the coffee table doing his homework. Ashley is nowhere to be seen, still sick in her room most likely.

“How was your first day back?” His father asks.

“Fine,” Josh lies.

“There’s stroganoff in the fridge,” his mother reminds him.

Suddenly Josh realizes that he’s starving. All he’s had to eat today was the bowl of cereal he had for breakfast. He had debated getting lunch and in the end decided against it considering he has almost no money and no one has ever died from skipping lunch. Normally, if he is running low on funds, he’d ask his parents for extra cash to hold him over until payday. That isn’t an option anymore.

Like he said, no one has ever died from skipping lunch.

Stomach full to bursting after devouring more than half of the leftovers (and garlic bread—how had his mother failed to mention that she made garlic bread? That was, like, a sin) he heads back into his room where he plans to do serious homework. When he passes by Ashley’s room, he thinks about going in to see how she’s feeling. He presses his ear against the door and hears nothing.

Sleeping.

He’ll check on her tomorrow.

After nearly three solid hours of math homework (not to mention nearly a dozen tutorials on YouTube because teaching himself from the book examples is just impossible), he feels like _maybe_ he’s not going to fail his senior year of high school. Then again, it’s only the first quarter.

When it’s nearing midnight, Josh takes one of his anxiety pills and crawls into bed, hastily adding in a prayer that whatever awaits him next in his dreams isn’t as graphic or horrifying.

#

Josh opens his eyes to a white room. Bark is rough against his bare back from where he leans against the wooden planks of the treehouse, and he’s squishing the quiver that holds his drumsticks.

Someone taps him on the shoulder. It’s little Blurryface, wearing Star Wars pajamas. His hair is wild, like he’s just woken from sleep. “Nice mask. Who are you?”

Mask? Josh reaches up and—yes, he’s wearing a mask. He must have been wearing it for so long that his skin got used to it, like how when he wears his snapbacks around the house for so long they become part of him and he forgets they’re there. He sheds the mask and stares into the large, dead eyes of an alien.

“Oh—it’s you,” Blurry says. He looks surprised. “I didn’t really think you’d come back. Can I see that mask? That’s pretty cool.”

Josh gives him the mask, feeling a little too polite to say that not even _he_ thought that he’d come back (and maybe he wouldn’t even be here, if he had a say). 

Blurry takes the mask, turning it over in his hands. He tugs it on over his head for a moment before wrenching it off, mussing his hair and looking at Josh in concern.

“What happened?” He asks, pointing to Josh’s chest. When Josh looks down, he sees that there’s a mass of scar tissue there in the shape of a crude X. He runs a finger over the puckered tissue and doesn’t feel the thud of his heart beneath it.

Ironic, considering Blurryface himself is the one responsible.

“Don’t worry about it,” Josh says even though he’s a little worried about it himself. Peering around the small child, he sees that in the corner, Blurry has made a small den of rough weave blankets and one lumpy pillow. “Were you sleeping?”

“Yeah,” Blurry says. “I was tired. There’s not a whole lot to do.”

“Do you still have those Pokémon cards?”

Blurry’s face lights up. “ _Duh!_ ”

#

Josh tries to lose on purpose because that’s the polite thing to do when competing against a child. The problem is that Blurryface is so terrible at battling Pokémon that losing is a serious challenge. Toeing the line between being feasibly bad and being obviously obtuse isn’t as easy as Josh’s parents made it out to be when he was a kid and winning all the games.

After the fifth game in a row that Blurry wins, he seems to get bored.

“Do you have any other card games?” Josh asks.

“No,” Blurry says. “But I’ve got other stuff. Come look.”

Blurry leads him to the corner of the room, where a metal ring sticks up from the floor. He pulls up on it with all his strength and a panel comes free, large enough for Josh to slip through if he curls in his shoulders. The physical impossibility of a crawl space inside a treehouse resting fifteen feet off of the ground doesn’t seem to bother the child who slips into the dark hole and begins handing up supplies. Paper. Pencils. Crayons. Markers.

They draw, and a ritual that Blurry has becomes known to Josh. Blurry draws happy scenes: beaches, houses, families watching TV, his smile fading the happier the picture becomes. When he’s finished, he tears the picture into pieces and drops them down into the crawlspace, wiggling his fingers so that they fall like snow.

“Draw yourself,” Josh suggests. He’s never liked the way he looks, but coming up with fun ways to portray himself always makes him feel better about his skin.

Blurry reaches for the markers and only takes two: the red and the black. What he draws is hardly human. It reminds Josh more of the shadow creatures than anything else: a vaguely child-sized shape, ghost like, featureless except for red slits where the eyes should be.

“That’s not you at all,” Josh says.

“It looks just like me,” Blurry replies, holding up the paper by his face like he wants Josh to do a comparison.

“It doesn’t,” Josh insists. “You don’t look like that.”

“Sometimes we aren’t what we look like,” the boy replies, sagely. “And sometimes people don’t look hard enough. Try squinting.”

“No thanks.”

“What are you drawing, then?”

“My drum set,” Josh says. He doesn’t know _why_ he decided to draw his set—it was the first subject that came to mind. He hasn’t played in weeks, not unless he’s at work and dying of boredom. Pointing out each drum, he names them for Blurry.

“Cool,” Blurry says, eyes fluttering. He’s obviously exhausted, eyelids heavy with sleep, sometimes swaying dangerously when he splashes color onto a spacescape. The more relaxing their drawing becomes, the more the boy’s excitement seems to wear off and he’s left with his lingering exhaustion.

“Why don’t you go back to sleep?” Josh asks. “I’m really sorry that I woke you.”

“No!” Blurry says. “I don’t want you to leave yet. I’m having fun.”

“You’re going to fall asleep sitting up. I’m not leaving, so why don’t you just lie down.”

Frowning, Blurry allows himself to be coaxed into bed. There’s no mattress, and his bony little hips can’t be comfortable on the floor of the treehouse, but he doesn’t complain, wrapping the blanket around himself like he’s a caterpillar in its cocoon, curling up on his side to watch with dark eyes where Josh is reclining against the wall on the other side of the room.

“Will you tell me a story? I never get to hear stories anymore.”

“What kind of story do you want to hear?”

“One with a happy ending. Those are the best.”

Josh frowns, thinking. He used to tell stories to his younger siblings all the time when they were very little. It was one aspect of being the oldest child that he didn’t mind. When he tries to remember any of the stories he used to tell them, none come to mind. Has it really been so long?

In the end, he has to make one up, about two little boys and a treehouse who have to fight against evil shadows and villains. He’s barely talked for ten minutes when Blurryface is completely KO’ed, mouth open and drooling on his lumpy pillow. It’s a good thing, too, because he wasn’t sure what the end of the story was and whether it would be happy or not. The boy snores gently, and Josh finds himself nodding off even inside the dream, slipping into a peaceful state of meditation.

“Josh,” Blurry whispers. When his eyes open, time has passed. Blurry is sitting up now, blanket still wrapped around him tightly while he shivers. “I forgot to tell you. You gotta be careful.”

“What do you mean?” Josh asks blearily, rubbing the dryness from his eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“Shhh!” Blurry twists a finger free from his blanket to put it over his mouth. “Be quiet. He listens. He’s at the top right now arguing with the One at the top of the treehouse, but you have to be more careful what you say when he’s not busy. He can hear things. He can hear _through things_.”

“Blurryface?” Josh whispers back. He stares at the covered hole in the ceiling like just speaking his name might summon the older demonic presence.

Blurry nods, pointing at himself. “I know who took your heart. You have to be _so_ careful. So, so, _so_ careful. I don’t want you to get hurt. You play Pokémon cards so good.”

“Is Tyler in danger too?”

“Tyler is always in danger. The danger follows him.”

Josh shivers. Hearing such morbid things coming from Blurry’s fragile, young voice feels like something out of a horror movie. He can see the terror on the child’s face, and it’s an expression he’s too young to have. Blurry stares straight up at the ceiling of the treehouse, eyes growing wide. He scrambles towards the art supplies still sitting in their places in the corner, tripping over his blanket and nearly bumping his forehead on the floor.

He grabs a piece of blank paper and a blue crayon, writing furiously. When he’s done, he holds it up for Josh to see.

In a child’s messy handwriting:

**YOU GOT TO GO. WAKE UP NOW**

Blurry puts the paper flat against the floor, maintaining his intense eye contact, and underlining NOW feverishly, once, twice, three times and again and again until the crayon nearly snaps in his little hand. Josh can feel that something in the air has changed, something in the makeup of the Treehouse, like something evil has turned its eyes towards him.

Unsure if he _can_ wake himself up, he presses both fists against his temples and concentrates. In front of him, Blurry has grabbed the picture Josh drew of his set and is tearing it to pieces. Trying to ignore him, Josh goes back to focusing, and then suddenly he is slipping from the dream. It’s like stretching a muscle he didn’t previously know he was capable of stretching, like wiggling his ears for the first time after trying for months with no results.

In his bedroom, it is dark and quiet. He grabs his phone and sees there are no messages from Tyler, and he still has hours to go before morning.

Josh adjusts his pillows. He’s not afraid—but he’s unsettled. He spends the next hour tossing and turning, unable to find a comfortable position. In the end, he gets up early, turns on the light on his desk, and grabs his dream journal. Opening to a clean page, he writes a heading in bold.

**BLURRYFACE**

And beneath it, he writes everything that he knows about the creature.


	14. The Short End of the Stick

The thing about bad days is that they so often first present themselves as good days. Josh has experience with two kinds of bad days, the kind that is slow to grow and can be difficult to recognize until he’s right in the thick of it, and the kind where lightning strikes from a blue sky and takes him by surprise.

When the sun is finally up and his mother raps her knuckles against his bedroom door, he has no idea that he’s about to have one of the worst days of his life. His eyes ache sorely but he doesn’t feel _tired_. He’s reached the point of exhaustion characterized by a lack of sleepiness, and that’s okay by him. The last thing he needs is to fall asleep in the middle of a math exam.

He rubs his tender eyelids, squinting at the page of his dream journal. It’s filled with ink, sentences added and scratched out until there isn’t much left to read. If there’s one thing Josh knows about Blurryface, it’s that he doesn’t know much about Blurryface at all—save for the fact that he is exceptionally dangerous. It seems like the mystery surrounding Blurry will remain intact until Tyler decides he’s ready to talk about him. The sooner the better, in Josh’s opinion.

Tugging on his last clean uniform (he really, really needs to do laundry), he catches sight of his even wrinklier work shirt. Something happens in his head like a light switch has been turned on, and he scrambles for his phone to go through his voicemail again. With a sinking feeling, he realizes that he’s supposed to go into work this evening to discuss the paperwork his boss needs to be filled out regarding Josh’s _accident_.

“Super,” Josh mutters, shoving his phone into his pocket. Stomach filled with a hollow ache, he drags himself into the kitchen looking forward to his customary bowl of cereal, because he has a feeling that cereal is going to be one of the only highlights of his day.

He’s startled to see that Ashley is in the kitchen. It’s the first time that he’s seen her outside of her room since—well, he can’t remember. She’s mechanically eating a bowl of cereal, hair unbrushed and hanging limply against her shoulders. The smile she gives when she sees him is mostly pained like smiling rubs against something raw and wounded inside of her.

“Feeling better?” Josh asks, grabbing a clean bowl from the cabinets.

“Much,” she mutters, eyes on her spoon.

“Where’s mom?” 

“Double shift.”

Silence falls around them except for the muted crunching of cereal. Josh isn’t sure what to say. The air around them feels _awkward_ , and things have never been awkward with Ashley before. He finds himself eating quicker than usual so that he can get out of the kitchen and away from the tension, and the thought makes him uncomfortable. Whatever’s happening between them—he doesn’t like it.

But he doesn’t know how to fix it, either.

“See you,” he mumbles, putting his empty bowl in the sink.

“Josh!” She calls sharply just after he’s left the room. He ducks his head back in. She’s looking away from her cereal finally, fist clenched tightly around her spoon, staring at him intently.

 _Something is wrong,_ he thinks faintly.

“What is it?”

Her fist relaxes around her spoon, the tension bled from her. She stirs her cereal morosely and returns to staring at it. “Have a good day,” she says.

“Thanks. You too.”

Outside, the air is getting cooler with the first hint of the upcoming fall. Fall in Ohio is beautiful. He wishes there were more trees around Columbus because watching the leaves change colors with the seasons is one of his favorite things, even if they stick to the sidewalk and make riding a bike dangerous. Since he doesn’t have a bike anymore, problem solved.

This time, when he spots Tyler outside of the school waiting to get in with the rest of the student body, he nods in Josh’s direction. The acknowledgment—the public acknowledgment, no less, where anyone could have followed Tyler’s eyes and seen just who he was nodding to—makes Josh feel good. Validated. He walks to his locker with a spring in his step, feeling a little stupid (it was just a _nod_ ) but validated nonetheless.

The tapping of a finger on his shoulder gives him déjà vu. It’s the girl from yesterday, hair in soft, blonde ringlets instead of a tight ponytail. Her scarf today is bright red, contrasting nicely with the blue and gray of their school uniform. She’s wearing red lipstick too, something that Josh thought girls only did in movies and on television.

“Are we still on for after school? Mr. Bryant said he leaves the music room open after school, so we could meet there.”

Josh had forgotten about _that_ too. He feels panicked considering he had meant to look up the best way to teach someone how to read music or keep time or play the bells but had never gotten around to it. The feeling of anxiety circling around his gut and clenching tight like a snake tightening around its pray reminds him that he didn’t take a pill for his anxiety before coming to school.

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Josh says even though he’d rather have a root canal than look stupid in front of a beautiful girl and the odds of that seem to be increasing exponentially. “See you there.”

“Perfect,” she says, and the little gap between her front two teeth reveals a little peak of her tongue when she presses against it.

Trying to be patient while waiting for art class is like trying to hold his breath; he lasts for a minute and then he feels a little like he’s dying. It should be criminal to wait two entire periods to interact with Tyler Joseph (ignoring the fact that he’d gone _months_ without the other boy so much as looking at him before last week). Josh can’t help it that now that he’s sort of friends with Tyler he wants to see him more often.

Friends see friends often. It’s the friendly thing to do.

And after holding his breath all day, art class is like a huge, gulping breath. They sit the canvas in between them but spend the whole class discussing their dreams, heads pressed close together so that Miss Teague doesn’t notice they aren’t talking about art. They trade dream journals so they can flip through the others' notes. Josh hastily had written about open heart surgery with Blurry during his early morning insomnia session, and those seem to be the pages Tyler lingers over most.

Flipping through Tyler’s journal, Josh notices that there are pages missing, torn free close to the binding so that it’s almost impossible to tell.

“What’s this?” Tyler asks, laying Josh’s journal flat. The page for Blurryface is displayed, and it looks even messier and nonsensical in the light of the day—and the fluorescent lights of the art room.

“Oh, I was just trying to make sense of Blurryface. I know that you don’t want to talk about him yet, I just—wanted to see what I could figure out on my own.”

Tyler carefully closes the journal, face serious. “Don’t look too closely into nothing, Josh. Blurry is nothing.”

Josh can’t tell which of them Tyler is trying to persuade more. His ears are still ringing a little from the way the younger boy pronounces his name. Is that the first time he's said it out loud and in real life?

“If you want to put your detective skills to use, try to figure out why we don’t share dreams as often as we used to,” Tyler says, frowning. “We didn’t dream together last night, but the night before, but not the night before that, but both nights—I’m getting confused now. Anyway, it’s bugging me.”

Josh has a theory about why they don’t always share dreams—but he’d rather be sure than be wrong in front of Tyler, so instead he nods and tries to change the subject. “Speaking of detective skills, how did your research go last night? Find anything promising?”

“Sort of,” Tyler says, brightening. He flips to the very back of his notebook where Josh hadn’t bothered looking at. There are pages filled with the sort of notes one might take during a lecture at school. Just the sight of them makes his hand cramp in sympathy. “I looked into more about dreams and dreaming, and I’m more convinced than ever that these dreams mean something.”

He presents his case and Josh listens intently, trying to follow along with the rapid slew of words and the occasional technical term that he needs to have defined. Apparently, dreaming is something everyone does even if they don’t remember it. There are various stages of sleep that occur in a cycle, and memorable dreaming usually occurs during the deepest part of the cycle.

“The sleep cycle repeats itself several times a night, which should theoretically lead to several different dreams,” Tyler says. “And sometimes I do have more than one—but never more than one that we share. It’s like, once that dream starts, the sleep cycle stops and stays there until we wake up. Isn’t that weird?”

With the way Tyler is making is sound, _yeah_ it sounds pretty weird.

“What about dream interpretations? Did you look into any of those?”

The younger boy frowns, closing his notebook. “There wasn’t anything promising. Lots of websites that say they can interpret your dream, but science says there are no definitive meanings. There are some interesting theories, though. Some people say that what happens to you when you dream is what your brain thinks might happen to you in the future. Like your own brain is trying to prepare you for what might happen.”

Josh gets goosebumps and struggles not to shudder. If his brain thinks there’s even the slightest likelihood that a demonic Tyler Joseph lookalike is going to rip his heart out, then Josh is even more messed up than he sometimes feels.

The bell rings and both boys rush to pack up their items, continuing the conversation.

“Gather evidence after school?” Tyler offers. “Your place or mine—it makes no different to me.” 

“I can’t,” Josh frowns. “I’m supposed to tutor this girl.” 

“What girl?” Tyler asks.

“I don’t know her—I think she’s on the cheerleading team. She needs my help in music class.”

“Vanessa? Allison? Sophia? Was she tall or short? Dark or light hair? I bet it was Sophia—”

“I have no idea who any of those people are, but she’s short and has blonde hair. She’s wearing a scarf today, red, and she’s got this little gap—”

“ _Wow_ , that’s a lot of details for a girl whose name you don’t even know.” Something about Tyler’s tone is strange. Josh squints at the younger boy, but his face is blank. He’s never been good with figuring out what someone is thinking or feeling (not like his sister who seems to have a sixth sense, some empathetic-telepathic superpower).

“It’d be hard to forget her,” Josh says without thinking and a little more defensively than he’d like. “What does it matter anyway?”

“Josh—Tyler—as much as I appreciate your enthusiasm for art, it’s time to get out of my classroom,” Miss Teague says from the front of the room, voice half humorous, half intrigued by their rising voices.

“I’ll see you Monday, then,” Tyler mutters, pushing past and disappearing out the classroom door.

What the heck is up with that kid’s mood swings? It would probably take a genius to figure it out —or an Ashley, but Josh is neither of those things. Squaring his shoulders, he follows out into the hall, heading to his locker to deposit his books and head to lunch.

#

Eliza Teague is sorting brushes on her lunch break (fan brushes and flat brushes look nothing alike, how did kids always misplace them into the wrong jars?) when she notices the book resting forgotten where the Dun-Joseph duo had sat in the previous period. One of theirs, or something someone else placed there? From a distance, she mistakes it for a library book (or a folder, perhaps), but when she makes her way around the room, she sees that it’s a spiral notebook.

Frowning, she opens it, looking for a name in the binding. Nothing. Her eyes trail to the pages filled from top to bottom with neat, tiny handwriting, searching for any sight of a name. There is a name repeated, but it’s obviously not the name of the owner of the journal. The more she reads, the more unsettled she feels until she has to sit down at the empty student desk.

Struck with an idea, she goes to the filing cabinet in the corner. It isn’t often that she hands out physical work for her students to accomplish and turn in, but at the beginning of the semester, there was a quiz. She drags the papers free and scatters them over her desk, notebook open in the middle, and begins to compare handwriting samples, eliminating students one by one.

At last, only one student remains, and then a question comes to mind, echoing unanswered in her head.

What was she going to do about this?

#

Josh’s anxiety is full-force by the end of the day when he’s trudging to the music room. What if he’s the worst teacher, like, ever? What if he leaves her more confused than ever? Jerry recommended him, and the last thing he wanted to do was to let down his favorite teacher. He’s considering all of the gruesome illnesses or accidents he could fake to get out of this tutoring session when the girl in question pops up by his side from thin air. She’s so much shorter that she has to look up at him to smile.

“Ready?” She asks.

“Yeah,” he lies. “You?”

“Mostly,” she shrugs. “I’m a little nervous. What if I’m a really bad student?”

“I doubt it,” Josh says to be polite. He really doesn’t know anything about this girl—doesn’t even know her name (and it seems impolite to bring that up now. Was he expected to know it all along? Was this girl so high on the social hierarchy that her name should be a given, like Jesus or Tyler Joseph?). More than likely, she _is_ a bad student. Why else would she need tutoring?

 But that turns out to be completely untrue. She’s a quick enough study when it comes to memorization, learning the musical staff and each note for each coordinating line and space. It takes her some practice to understand time signatures and the length each note deserves depending on the signature, but she’s decent enough by the time an hour has passed and Josh _really_ needs to get going if he’s going to make it to work on time.

“Thank you so much,” she says, getting a piece of paper from her bag while Josh puts away the bell set he was using for reference. “You’re a great teacher.”

And yeah, Josh might be a little unpracticed with the opposite-sex but he isn’t stupid or blind. This girl is _flirting_ with him. Throughout the entire session, she made unnecessary movements to touch his hand or arm, not to mention he didn’t think she once stopped smiling. When she tears a slip of the paper free and hands it to him, he has to try not to smile as widely as he wants to.

Written there is SOPHIA with her phone number. There’s a smiley face too. A fricking smiley face. “Just in case you need to cancel and you aren’t going to be at school or—something,” she says, smiling, eyes searching his face a little unsure.

“I’ll text you when I’m off work so you have mine too,” he says. Her face relaxes and his stomach is warm, the fluttering of anxiety nearly entirely gone. Sophia is just easy to be around, one of those people who can carry on conversations with anyone or anything—brick walls named Josh Dun included.

They part ways and Josh feels _good_.

He feels good until he runs into Miss Teague in the hallway. The art teacher has taken her hair down and is walking around the school in just her socks (clearly expecting the vast majority of students to have been gone so as to not witness her or her bare ankles). She smiles at him over the stack of canvases she’s carrying but then frowns straight after.

“Hey Josh, can we talk?”

And Josh is _seriously_ going to be late to work, but he doesn’t mistake the tone in Teague’s voice for anything other than what it is: an order. He changes course, following her back to the art room where he lingers awkwardly in front of her desk, unsure whether she wants him to take a seat or not.

After she deposits the canvases in the corner of the room, she walks to her desk and sits there heavily, looking troubled. Whatever she has to say isn’t good news, and Josh’s anxiety is back tenfold because _what could he have done wrong_ and _what is she going to do to him?_ It’s all worse than he even imagines, because she opens her desk, reaches inside, and removes Josh’s dream journal.

Mouth dry, Josh can do nothing but stare.

“Is this your notebook?” She asks him.

“Yes,” he says because there’s no way it’s not. She can probably see by the look on his face. Josh has always had a habit of wearing his emotions on his sleeve, and if his expression is reflecting any of the terror he’s experiencing on the inside, she knows it’s his journal and she knows that he knows that this is bad.

“There were some seriously concerning things here, Josh.”

“It’s private. You had no right to read it.”

“I’m _concerned_ about you. Those things you wrote—what are they? Stories? Worse? Is something going on at home? Is there someone bothering you in my class? Maybe Tyler—”

“It’s not any of your business.” Josh snatches the journal off of her desk. Her face morphs from concerned-woman to shocked-authority, because alright maybe Josh wasn’t as gentle as he could have been, slamming his hand down on the table to grab his notebook, but he’s upset and he’s scared and he doesn’t know how much she’s read and—

“It is my business,” she says lowly. “You wrote incredibly graphic, _violent_ things about Tyler Joseph—”

“Look, how about you just mind your own business and leave me the hell alone.”

Josh turns then and practically sprints out the door to avoid seeing what effect his words might have on her. He’s never said such rude things to an adult, never said them to anyone really. Pulling his bag off of his shoulder, he stuffs the notebook deep inside, so deep that he hopes it and all of its knowledge might cease to exist. Were there bags like that large enough for people?

He ignores the sound of Teague calling his name, squaring his shoulder to push through the doors and out into the sun. He’s definitely going to be late for work.

#

His anger and fear and anxiety haven’t disappeared by the time he makes it to Guitar Center. As a matter of fact, he feels worse. His hands are shaking, palms slick, mouth dry but throat swallowing convulsively. Being seated in the office of his HR while she goes over the paperwork in front of her just makes things worse. Josh feels like he’s on the verge of another full-blown panic attack.

They sit in silence for so long that Josh begins to doubt he really exists, begins to doubt that she can see him or even knows that he’s there. _I’m real_ , he tells himself, digging his nails into his palms. The sting of pain seems to ground him, like an anchor in the ocean. He’s real. Of course, he’s real.

As if to validate his existence, the head of HR finally looks up, smiling. “Hey, Josh. We need you to fill out some paperwork about what happened on Monday. Are you feeling better today?”

“Yes,” Josh mutters.

“Good. I’ve filled out everything I can. This just exonerates us from any blame regarding your— incident.”

Straight to the point. Josh lets her flip through pages, pointing out where she needs his signatures and initials and dates, explaining along the way everything that he’s signing and promising to make copies so that he can keep them for his records. It doesn’t take as long as he thought it would.

“There’s only one more thing Josh, and I want to make it clear that this has _nothing_ to do with what happened on Monday. I want to make that very clear.”

“Alright?”

“You knew that when we accepted your transfer here that we were a little overstaffed.”

She continues to talk, and slowly Josh begins to understand what she’s saying. His ears begin to ring.

Josh is _fired_.

‘Let go’ is the term she keeps using like it hurts any less, like his family will understand that more. Cutting back on labor, the part-timers are the first to go, and Josh is the most recent addition to the store and therefore gets the short end of the stick. She has even more paperwork for him then and even his final check, which is pitiful considering it’s cut in half. Within an hour, he’s clearing out his locker in the employee breakroom.

To add insult to injury, he has to walk home, feeling lower than he’s ever been. In his head scrolls a list of all the reasons he desperately needed that job: his cellphone, his insurance, the rent he pays his parents. The thought hits him like a punch to the gut—his parents. What are they going do without the money he gives them? He has some money in his savings, but it will be gone in no time without a source replenishing it.

His thoughts are so loud that he makes it to his house in what feels like moments. There are warm glows from the living room and kitchen windows, the streetlights all along the road just beginning to flicker on from the impending darkness. Josh doesn’t feel like he can go into his house—he’s not ready. Instead, he trudges around back and sits on the patio, resting his book bag in his lap.

There are fireflies out, twinkling in the darkness. He watches them until it grows very dark, wondering over and over again: _what am I going to do?_


	15. Jamais Vu

Josh presses the ear to the wall in his bedroom. His parents’ room is nestled between his own and Ashley’s, and the walls are old and thin. Usually, he can only detect vague movement or the murmuring of indistinct voices, but the conversation tonight is so heated that he can sometimes make out whole words: Josh, Guitar, and the vague hiss of any word with an S.

It’s past midnight. All of his siblings are in bed, but he wouldn’t be surprised if the animated sound of his parents’ voices woke them. Josh is desperate to listen. After spending an hour in the dark of his backyard becoming dinner for mosquitoes, he’d finally gathered together the meager scraps of his pride and gone inside the house to tell his family what had happened.

His parents had taken it rather stoically, though obviously outraged on his behalf. They’d asked him a million questions, sharing looks and using their marriage-telepathy (Josh is like, 75% sure that’s a real thing) to talk without him understanding. The rest of the evening had passed in tense silence, the scraping of utensils on plates, the worried looks exchanged between youngest siblings.

And Jordan.

“Why did the girl put peanut butter on the road?” He asked everyone. It was the first words spoken at the table, and the destruction of silence seemed to leave everyone unsettled, including the jokester who looked like he wished he could snatch the words right out of the air and put them back into his mouth.

“I don’t know,” his mother answer tiredly when it was clear no one else was going to humor the child. “Why would she do that?”

“To go with the traffic jam,” Jordan finished weakly. No one had laughed.

And now, Josh was being an absolute creep, desperate to know what was going on in his parents’ heads. The wall is too much of a buffer for him to follow along with their conversation, no matter how thin it is. Instead, he tries a new tactic, slinking towards his bedroom door. He turns the knob millimeter by millimeter, holding his breath, praying that there won’t be any squeaks or creaks or squeals of death from the hinges when he opens it carefully.

At last, he slips out into the hallway. It’s so quiet that the silence rings in his ears as he shimmies through the crack in the door and towards his parents’ bedroom. What he sees there nearly makes him scream. Ashley’s pale face stares up at him, slumped against the wall, knees to her chest. She holds up her finger over her lips.  _Hush_.

 _How long have you been listening?_ Josh mouths _._

 _What?_  She mouths back.

 _What are they saying?_  Josh pantomimes, mouthing his words as dramatically as he can.

 _I can’t read lips!_  She forms back, throwing her hands up exasperatedly. Rolling his eyes, Josh urgently motions for her to follow him to the basement. They creep down the steps as quietly as they can, Ashley flicking the switch on at the bottom of the stairs.

The basement is mostly finished, chilled, complete with plenty of miscellaneous boxes and copious amount of Christmas decorations gathering dust. The fluorescent light that floods the room makes them squint, and like two magnets drawn to iron no matter how long they’ve been separated, the two of them take the same path they used to towards the drum set in the corner and the worn loveseat across from it.

“How long were you listening? I’ve been trying to hear in my room but I can only make out a few words.”

“It’s bad,” Ashley says. Her eyes are red but dry, face looking struck and sick. “They’re scared but they don’t want us to know. They’re talking about loans and mortgages and getting second jobs again. Mom said she feels like a failure.”

Hearing that makes Josh feel as terrible as Ashley looks.

“It’s too much for them. Four kids—it’s too much,” Ashley mumbles. She puts her head in her hands.

“I’ll get another job. You and mom and dad don’t need to worry,” Josh says. Truth is, Josh feels pretty fucking worried. Knowing that his parents feel the same way just makes him more frightened. Parents are supposed to be invincible. They aren’t supposed to feel fear. The idea that they might just be two scared adults makes Josh feel fallible.

“You can’t get another job,” Ashley says, uncharacteristically harsh. She wipes at her eyes angrily. “You already lost one because of your anxiety. You’re not strong enough.”

It might have hurt Josh less if she’d just reached out to  _slap_  him instead. His heart stutters with anxiety and embarrassment, face turning red. “Is  _that_  what you think? I didn’t get fired because of my anxiety. They were overstaffed.”

“Yeah right,” she says with all the scathing heat of a fifteen-year-old. He’s never seen his sister like this before, so angry and malignant. “I don’t believe that and neither do mom and dad. It’s like they said—you can’t take care of yourself. If you had just known your limits, maybe we wouldn't have to worry about how we’re going to keep our house.”

The silence that lingers after her words is like words itself, and in it Josh hears all the truths and things that he had hoped would never be said out loud. Ashley’s lips are quivering with anger, but it all seeps out from her in the quiet, like a balloon with the air being released. In the place of the angsty teenager is just a scared little girl, but the damage has already been done.

“It’s great to know what you all really think of me, I guess,” Josh says coldly. “Look. I’m going back to bed. You should too. It’s late.”

“It’s a Saturday and you’re not the boss of me,” she mutters.

It’s a good thing he isn’t the boss of her because right now Josh would do something like send her to bed without supper or take her cell phone or make her write a detailed apology, one of those corny punishments that he always sees on sitcoms. In reality, since he can’t punish her, he just wants to hurt her, to make her feel as vulnerable and useless as she’s made him feel.

Judging by the look of her crying on the loveseat, she’s already there. So instead of comforting her, Josh leaves her there, trudging back up the stairs and into his bedroom. When he creeps past his parents’ room, there is no noise.

Alone in his room, he fumes quietly, pacing the floor and wishing there was a way to get rid of all the  _anger_  and the  _hurt_  and the  _fear_  that is inside poisoning him, dark thoughts swimming through the channels of his brain and making him sick.

 _Without a job, what are you to your family?_  a voice whispers in his head.  _Just another mouth to feed. Just a black hole that they throw money away into. You’re useless. You’re dead-weight._   _Ashley was right—they have too many kids, and_  you’re  _the one that should have never been born._

There’s nothing that Josh can say back to those thoughts because they’re true. He asked himself those same questions sitting in the dark backyard trying to get the nerve to come inside hours earlier. Their verity makes the thoughts hurt, like arrows sharpened to fine points and fired into the weak spot at the back of his skull. He longs for a way to make the thoughts stop, to make all of his pain and fear and anxiety stop.

And of course, there is a way. It sits on his night stand. He takes two of the pills at once and goes to stand at the window. It’s so dark out that he only sees his own disgusting reflection staring back at himself. For a moment, he thinks of taking a handful of the pills. The more the pain, the more pills. It has a certain attractive logic to it—but Josh could never do that to his family.

Funerals are expensive, and God knows they don’t have the money to bury him.

Feeling wretched, Josh strips and crawls into bed. He doesn’t dream.

When he wakes in the morning, he feels like he hasn’t slept at all. His skin feels a size too small, suffocating his bones. He needs out of his house; he’s drowning there, but now that he has no job and no bike, he has nowhere to go. Lying in bed, he listens to the quiet sound s of his family awake and active outside of his bedroom. Is that what woke him?

No—because his phone is buzzing on his nightstand.

#

Saturday morning, Tyler makes the second X in his calendar book for the month. His bed has become a spider’s web, and he is both the spider and the fly; he is his victim and his villain. Arms clumsy, sticky with the spider’s silk of his mind, he nearly knocks all of the contents of his night stand off and onto the floor while reaching for the top drawer. After the X is drawn, Tyler exchanges the calendar book for the neglected Bible. Dust slick and filmy under his fingers, he clutches it to his chest. Maybe he will feel God’s presence through osmosis because none of the other ways are working.

Tyler’s eyes are drawn to the bottom drawer of his dresser across the room. Pushed to the back is a shoe box filled with an eclectic bunch of knickknacks that would like bore any member of his family nosey enough to go snooping through it. Mixed in with the useless sentimental items is a tool of self-destruction. Has it gone rusty with oxidation, or is it as pristine and deadly as the day he tucked it away? Tyler hasn’t touched it since the previous spring, not since he had his accident when promised his parents that he would never touch it again.

 _Lies,_  Blurryface reminds him.

Yes. He  _had_  lied. He told them that he’d thrown the blade away, just another lie to add to his repertoire, just another link in the shackles he wraps around himself every morning, just another swath of spider’s silk to pin him into his grave. Out of sight should be out of mind. The shoebox should be good enough, but it isn’t. Instead, he finds himself drawn to it more and more. It calls to him, hums a throbbing, dark beat that he feels in his teeth and his chest and his bones.

_Use it. You deserve it._

Maybe he does deserve it, but he doesn’t want it. He doesn’t want the neat lines on his arms, doesn’t want the stinging pain, doesn’t want the shame that comes with the blade. He doesn’t want the burden of long sleeves ( _But it’s getting colder outside, Tyler, it’s nearly October, it’s a perfect excuse—_ ), the struggle of secrecy, the guilt of lying to his family, the stress of having to hide his disgusting habit.

Mostly, he doesn’t want it because he shouldn’t want it. He has recovered. He is Recovered. People who are Recovered are healthy and don’t hurt themselves—they don’t want to punish themselves. Tyler is normal. Tyler is healthy. He is those things because he won’t allow himself to be otherwise. Words like Backsliding and Relapse aren’t in Tyler Joseph’s vocabulary.

 _Please, God,_  Tyler prays, clutching the Bible closer.  _Please don’t let them be in my vocabulary._

Feeling on the verge of hysteria, he takes several deep, long breaths and tries to think. Tyler’s two favorite tools for recovery are self-awareness and distraction. Self-awareness isn’t something he’s capable of today—he feels like swathing himself in a lovely shade of denial, thank you very much— but distraction is a viable option, and two things come to mind straight away.

His ukulele and Josh Dun.

He decides that instead of dusting off his shoebox, he’ll dust off his ukulele. He’s been trying to find chords and a melody that matched the poem he wrote about the sea. Maybe all of this depression and self-doubt can be used as fuel for his creation. Maybe that’s why God was such an awesome creator; He had a lot of pain. If so, Tyler feels like he has enough fuel for a creative bonfire.

So that’s what he does, laying his notebook of lyrics and poem flat on his bed, strumming at his ukulele. To come at his depression from every viable angle, he sends a message to Josh, letting his eyes flicker to where his phone rests on the nightstand while he waits for a reply.

Hey. How’d the tutoring go?  _(Sent 9:12 AM)_

There’s so much that Tyler doesn’t understand about music theory. He listens to a wide variety of music, but there’s a vast difference between letting himself be moved by the music and  _moving_  the music. There are chords that sound nice, but the progressions feel forced, like when he tries to write with his left hand and all his letters are weak and shaky.

When his phone buzzes on his night stand, he nearly jumps out of his own skin.

good. afterward sucked, though. we have a problem with miss Teague   _(Received 9:26 AM)_

Tyler sets down his ukulele, chewing on the inside of his bottom lip. A problem? He doesn’t like the sound of that or the way it made his stomach roil with anxiety like a little boat on the sea.

 Fingers trembling, he types back a quick reply.

What kind of problem?  _(Sent 9:27 AM)_

she found my dream journal and thinks i want to go all charles manson on you.  _(Received 9:31 AM)_

He groans, lying back on his bed and abandoning his phone face-down on his chest. Tyler rubs at his eyes with his palms, wishing he could rub the previous text right out of his brain. How could they have been so stupid as to leave the journal behind? Like a bolt of lightning striking him, he remembers that they’d been bantering while they gathered their books. Tyler had been giving Josh the third degree about tutoring some nameless girl rather than dreaming with  _him_.

This is Tyler’s fault. The stab of guilt in his chest is as sharp as the pain he sometimes gets in his side when he plays basketball too hard for too long. What if something  _happens_  to Josh now? What if he like, gets expelled or something?

Did she say what she was going to do about it?  _(Sent 9:32 AM)_

i didn’t give her the chance. told her off and split.  _(Received 9:34 AM)_

After a pause: getting suspended is the last thing i need rn.  _(Received 9:43 AM)_

Are you okay?  _(Sent 9:45 AM)_

not really. i got fired.  _(Received 9:49 AM)_

What?? Are you kidding?  _(Sent 9:50 AM)_

i wish. i really fucking wish.  _(Received 9:52 AM)_

Tyler’s never heard (or read, to be perfectly accurate) Josh curse before, and it does something to his stomach, something close to fear but not quite trepidation. He’s never had to work before but imagines that getting fired would feel similar to getting kicked off of the basketball team, and if so, then  _ouch_. But this is a prime opportunity, because the second most valuable tool to Tyler’s recovery is distraction, and helping someone is the perfect distraction.

Why’d you get fired?  _(Sent 9:53 AM)_

they said that they were overstaffed. i knew that they were, but they’ve had the same number of people working there for MONTHS and it hasn’t been a problem until now. apparently, my parents think it’s because i had an accident on the clock and they had to call an ambulance for me. they were looking for any excuse to get rid of me.  _(Received 10:02 AM)_

That’s illegal, isn’t it?  _(Sent 10:04 AM)_

Tyler is pretty sure that’s illegal unless the accident was somehow Josh’s fault. For some reason, he’s having a hard time putting any sort of blame on the older boy. For some reason, he’s wishing that he knew more about law besides what little he learned in government class during his middle school years (spoiler alert: not much). He wishes that he wasn’t so  _useless_.

 i don’t know. doesn’t matter i guess. even if it is, we don’t have the money for a lawyer or anything.  _(Received 10:07 AM)_

Empathy has always been a problem for Tyler because he seems to feel the pain of those around him just as keenly (if not more so) than his own. He can’t help that he’s an emotional dude. His pain always feels secondary or acceptable, a given, like rain in the presence of clouds or the sky being blue. Other people’s pain sometimes cripples him, half an aching in his chest and half guilt at his own uselessness.

Before he can reply, Josh texts him again.

can I come over?  _(Received 10:08 AM)_

And the answer is a fundamental  _Heck yes._

#

In thirty minutes flat, Tyler is sitting out in Josh’s driveway, car idling, chewing on the tender skin inside his lip with his eyes glued to the front door. No sign of the older boy. Checking his phone, he sees no texts. Patience isn’t necessarily a virtue that Tyler has been blessed with, and he’s pretty sure that waiting is one of the circles of Hell. Where the heck is Josh? What if he’s having second thoughts about hanging out? This will be the first time they’ve spent time together outside of school, outside of their dreams, and outside of beds. Tyler frowns. That sounds weird in his head—best to never say it aloud.

Suddenly the front door bursts open and Josh is standing there, and Tyler’s breath stutters. Josh is wearing clingy jeans that Tyler only ever sees girls wearing when he drives to the mall in town. His shirt is some gaudy, long-sleeved button-down  _floral_  print, something that should be on the upholstery in the nursing home. It’s hideous, which is obviously the reason why Tyler can’t look away. Obviously.

The jeans look good, though—objectively speaking.

Josh lets himself into the passenger seat, smiling serenely. Tyler reaches out to turn down the AC because he has goosebumps, but the AC isn’t on. Weird. He turns up the heat instead.

“Hey, dude. I hope you’re hungry,” Tyler greets. “I’m starving and I want pancakes. Do you like breakfast foods?”

Josh frowns. “I’d eat breakfast foods for all three meals if it was socially acceptable—but I don’t have any money. We can still go out if you’d like. I’ll get an ice water or something.” 

“I wouldn’t have invited you if I wasn’t going to pay,” Tyler says.

“You don’t have to—”

“Seriously. Consider it payment for hanging out with me.”

Josh grins. “You don’t need to pay me to hang out with you.”

“Noted,” Tyler says, smirking. “Now—pancakes.”

#

Which is how Tyler ends up sitting across from Josh Dun, watching him devour a short stack of pancakes. On his own plate is a stack of pancakes nearly as tall as he is wide because he wasn’t kidding when he said that he was  _starving_. He devotes himself to keeping his eyes on his pancakes, cutting them into squares and triangles and soaking them in butter and syrup. Tyler watches his plate so that he’s not tempted to look up and watch Josh instead.

Because the other boy is definitely staring at him, which is a little flattering and a little irritating because Tyler would prefer to stare at  _him_  rather than the other way around. He knows that he has nothing to be insecure about regarding his looks (not that he could change anything about himself even if he did). Nevertheless, he can’t help but feel…fidgety under Josh’s gaze. What’s he looking at? Is there syrup on Tyler’s face? Does he have a milk mustache?

Tyler clears his throat. “So. Should we burn down Guitar Center after this or what? Fired. That sucks so hard, dude.”

Josh snorts and finally looks down at his own half-eaten plate. “Getting arrested for arson is probably the last thing I need right now.”

“Can’t afford your third strike?”

“Third strike? Bro. I’ve never been arrested.” Josh laughs, a high, tripping sound that makes Tyler grin. “That cop from art? My mom called him. She thought I was missing.”

 _That_  is news to Tyler. He abandons his fork on his plate to scrutinize Josh across the table without the distraction of sugary goodness. “How’d she forget that you’d be at school on a Monday?”

“Because I wasn’t supposed to be at school.”

Josh spills everything, words melting from his mouth like the butter on Tyler’s pancakes. He talks about his anxiety attack at Guitar Center, about his night in the emergency room, and about the pills he was given. All of the puzzle pieces seem to fall into place, including the hospital bracelet that Tyler had spotted on the other boy’s dresser during their first daytime rendezvous. He feels a little bad for allowing part of himself to believe the ludicrous rumors that spread about Josh after the cop incident (even though he did fondly look back on the ‘escaped from juvie’ rumor, because imagining Josh hopping a train over three states just to come to a small high school in Columbus was amusing).

“No offense, but that explains like, so much. That first day in art, you were kind of freaking out, but then the day we were assigned as partners, you were so… _smooth_  or something.” Smooth might have been the wrong word because Tyler feels a little embarrassed to have said it now. He squints, looking at the easy expression on Josh’s face. “Are you on those pills right now?”

“Am I acting smooth?” Josh beams, and holy heck his teeth are so nice. A piece of pancake slips off of his fork and disappears behind the table somewhere on his lap. “ _Shit._ ”

Tyler laughs, actually  _laughs_  until his sides hurt and his eyes are filled with tears. He can’t remember the last time he laughed so hard except for maybe in his dreams  _also_  with Josh. The other boy plucks the piece of pancake off of his lap between two of his fingers, popping it into his mouth and licking the syrup away.

Tyler laughs trail off and he reaches forward to have a sip of the ice water the waiter had brought with his milk.

“Five-second rule,” Josh explains. “I’m pretty much always on the pills now. If I wasn’t, I’d be a stupid, anxious mess."

Hearing Josh talk that way about himself makes Tyler feel odd, a twinge in his chest like he’s pulled a muscle. Normal people are supposed to feel good about themselves and reflect it in their speech and actions. Tyler’s never felt that way—but Tyler’s never been normal. He doesn’t like the vulnerability in Josh’s open statement. He wants Josh to feel good about himself.

“Anxiety doesn’t make you stupid.”

“It does when I have to take medicine just to be able to be able to talk to you.”

“You don’t. Trust me,” Tyler insists. Josh smiles and it makes Tyler’s stomach warm. There’s comradeship in the curve of his mouth, understanding in the crinkle of his eyes like they’re sharing a secret that’s just between the two of them. That’s the thing about Josh—he’s honest. It’s a bold quality, one that Tyler can’t help but admire. So often, he feels closed off or  _fake_.

_Because you’re a bug. You don’t want anyone to know that inside, all that’s there is blood and guts._

_No_. Tyler can be open, too. Gathering his courage: “Look, Josh. You remember that ukulele that you showed me last weekend?”

“The Lanikai? Have you been learning how to play? It’s probably making your fingers raw. Am I right?”

Tyler knows that his surprise must show on his face. Josh mimics his expression, widening his eyes comically. His eyes are so very dark, like mahogany in the sunlight. “You knew that I bought it?”

“Duh.”

Now Tyler feels ashamed, and more than a little embarrassed. Had he really thought he was being stealthy, sprinting into Guitar Center on Josh’s lunch break? God, what if Josh had watched him through the window at Taco Bell?  _That_  would be fatally mortifying. Has anyone ever died from humiliation? Tyler plans to Google it.

“I’m sorry that I went back for it when you weren’t there. I was—really angry at you.”

“For saying that you didn’t look like the kind of guy to write songs?”

Tyler shrugs, because yeah that’s exactly why he was angry, but it isn’t as simple as Josh makes it out to be. It also sounds kind of stupid, summed up in one little sentence. “I guess so.”

“Dude, I think it’s so cool that you write music. All I can do is improvise some beats on the kit. I can’t  _write_  or anything.” There is no mistaking the earnestness in Josh’s voice. The honesty strikes Tyler in an unguarded place, and he’s actually so moved that he feels a little bit like  _crying_  or doing something equally ridiculous like  _hugging Josh_.

His artistic side has always been a vulnerable one, maybe because it’s the side of him that he feels matters most. There’s excitement in basketball, a finesse honed through years of practice and a pleasant exhaustion that Tyler feels when he’s played hard and given it everything he physically can. While Tyler has always felt sensitive to criticism, there is something much more frightening about the thought of his art being critiqued as opposed to his basketball skills.

Basketball is what he can do; art is who he  _is_.

“You should let me read your writing some point. Play me a song or something,” Josh says. The thought nearly makes Tyler laugh out loud with nerves. Like mentioned, art is who he is. Tyler isn’t sure if he’s ready for Josh to know that. He isn’t sure if he’s ready for anyone to know that.

 “Maybe someday,” he says. “It’s personal.”

“No rush,” Josh replies so easily. When he smiles, it’s gentle, with half-lidded eyes. “So what should we do after this? Are you going to drop me off back at home?”

Tyler grins, shaking his head. He waves a hand to the passing waiter, motioning for the check.

#

Tyler hums to himself on their way to Guitar Center. He can’t help it; he’s in a good mood. Josh seems to be in a good mood also, elbow resting on the sill of the car door, lips quirked into a smile but eyes far away in thought. This is the second time that Tyler hasn’t felt the overwhelming need to have the radio on when he’s in the car, and it doesn’t take a genius to see that Josh is the reason why. Usually, when Tyler’s in the car (alone or with his family) he feels stifled by silence, suffocated, drowning in his own thoughts. He prefers to drown in music. Now, he feels a little bit like drowning in Josh.

Josh makes him feel good. For the first time, Tyler feels like he can be himself around another person, and that he won’t be judged for it. For the first time, he feels like someone sees  _him_  and even likes him. Even if they don’t come from the same social circles or live the same lifestyles, Josh is one of the most interesting people that Tyler knows. He feels close to the older boy, close in a way he’s never felt with anyone, not even his siblings or his friends from years. They fricking share dreams.

“What are we  _doing?_ ” Josh asks to the sky while unbuckling his belt when they reach Guitar Center. He squints against the sunlight, glancing over the roof of the car at Tyler. “We’re nuts.”

“We’re  _customers_ ,” Tyler says. “I need a case for the Lanikai.”

“Customers. Right.”

But really they just cause chaos. Josh greets the other employees on duty and waves them away when they offer to help. Together they travel from section to section in the store acting like a couple of twelve years olds: turning all the dials on the sound boards up, plugging guitars into amps and making disgusting noises on them, switching packages strings from their designated places to the wrong ones. It’s childish, and Tyler can’t help but enjoy it. Last time he was in Guitar Center, he was hiding from Josh. Now, he’s hiding  _with_  Josh, dodging employees and pretending they’re innocent.

When his back is turned messing with a rain stick (he loves the sound of rain and is thinking of forking over the money just to have it and play it in bed when he can’t sleep. That image alone has him chuckling) when he hears the thump of an electric kick drum pounding behind him. He turns to show Josh the rain stick and sees that Josh isn’t there.

He’s the one behind the electric drums, currently going to town along with 'Enter Sandman' playing over the speakers of the store. It’s a simple enough pattern, but the way Josh drums is unique, to say the least. He puts his whole body into it, head bobbing on his shoulders, legs jumping with his kicks, arms smashing with his hits. It’s an odd cocktail of wild and controlled that Tyler (and other patrons in the store) are having trouble looking away from. He can’t tell one way or the other whether it’s technically sound or on point, but it’s passionate. God, is it passionate. It’s almost indecent—no one should be this open, no one should be so genuine.

Tyler feels a strange stirring in his gut like when he goes over a hill too fast in his car and his stomach needs a moment to catch up. It’s odd, but he’s getting used to it. He’s thinking of renaming that sensation ‘Josh,’ because other than the occasional car ride, with Josh is the only time he ever really feels it.

When Josh is finished, the heads that have turned his direction turn away before he has the chance to see. Tyler gives him light applause, nearly dropping the rain stick in his haste to free his hands. He tries to make the applause mocking, but it’s probably coming across as too genuine for his own good. Vulnerability is a good look on Josh, but Tyler tries to remember that isn’t nearly so good a look on himself.

“When I said we were going to set the store on fire, I didn’t mean so literally,” he teases.

Josh does his squint-and-smile before spotting the rain stick, and the moment is broken.

#

Dropping Josh off afterward isn’t as easy as it should be. For once, Tyler wants to allow himself to just exist in the moment, to enjoy this piece of friendship, but the rest of him cries out in fear. Getting closer to Josh is only asking for pain, either when Josh hurts him or when he inevitably hurts Josh. Watching the older boy lope into his house (pausing to turn around and fricking  _wave_. Like, who does that anymore? Tyler apparently because, duh, he waves back), Tyler can’t decide which is worse: to hurt or to be hurt.

He doesn’t want to find out.

When he arrives home, he hears the thud of someone dribbling a basketball on the court in the backyard. It’s Zack, reeking of mosquito repellant. He spots Tyler and immediately passes the ball so that he can make a lay-up. The swish of the net is satisfying, and he can’t help but anticipate the upcoming basketball season, practices for which start Monday. Basketball is the common denominator in his life, that which he always returns to and can always find comfort in.

“Where’ve you been all day?” Zack asks, missing a free throw. Tyler rebounds and passes it back to his brother at the line.

“Out with Josh.”

“Josh. What’s up with him? I never heard of him before and now you’re bringing him home and spending the day with him.” Zack makes the second free throw, and the third, and the fourth while Tyler tries to dissect his younger brother’s tone.

“What are you asking? He’s a friend.” Missed free throw.

“I’m saying that I thought you didn’t like people, but you’re kind of acting like you—err,— _like_  this guy Josh. Here, you shoot.” They trade places, and Tyler starts to line them up and knock them down, five ten fifteen free throws in a row before he misses one, nothing but the sound of net and crickets and cicadas screeching in the distance.

“Am I wrong?” Zack presses. “You said last year that you didn’t think you had those feelings about people.”

“I don’t,” Tyler says. “They called it asexual in my bio class.”

“So you  _don’t_  like Josh.”

Tyler misses another free throw because he’s thinking. His sexuality has never been something he concerned himself with, it’s always been just another part of him like his love of Oreos and his brown hair. He’s never been attracted to anyone before, not the girl’s on the cheerleading team with their streamlined bodies or the boys he’s been undressing and dressing in front of since middle school. Beauty is something he can decide objectively, the way he knows that the paintings at the Metropolitan Museum are beautiful, but it doesn’t mean he wants to  _woo_  them or something, not like he wants to take them out and buy them—

_—breakfast?_

No way. Whatever he’d had with Josh earlier—it wasn’t a date. It was just two bros getting pancakes. Tyler has never felt interested romantically or sexually in any human being, ever, period. The fact that he’s closer than he’s ever been with anyone to Josh (have they really only known each other for a few weeks?) shouldn’t be relative. What difference does it make, how close he is with someone?

“I don’t like Josh that way. I don’t like anyone that way,” Tyler says. He sinks his free throw and gets bored, moving back away from the hoop to increase the difficulty of his challenge.

“If you did, I wouldn’t care.”

“I don’t.”

Zack rebounds the ball but doesn’t pass it back, choosing instead to tuck it under his arm and give his brother a shrewd glance that looks  _way_  too much like their mother’s expression. How the heck does Zack  _do_  that?

“Tyler. Okay. Look—you bring people home sometimes. Guys from the team—that girl from your science class last year when you had that group project. You’ve never gone out of your way to tell me not to embarrass you in front of them and you’ve never given them weird googly eyes from the driver’s seat. You might not  _like_  Josh like that, but he’s different. A guy would have to be blind to not see it.” Zack lifts up the hem of his shirt to mop at his face. “I’m beat. I’m heading inside. Don’t play too long. Mom’s making chicken cacciatore.”

He disappears into the house leaving Tyler standing behind the three-point line, basketball resting lamely in his hands. He takes a shot and misses. Talks with his little brother aren’t supposed to make him think so hard. Tyler decides not to think about it at all right now, securing the basketball in its safe place on the porch before following his brother inside.

#

Saturday night and Sunday night are nights for experimenting, Josh decides. He is beginning to feel more confident in his theory that he’s been testing: on nights when he takes his pills directly before bed, he does not share dreams with Tyler. Both nights after taking his medicine before sleep, he opens his eyes to the white-washed walls of the first treehouse.

Honestly? Josh doesn’t mind. While he misses spending that time with Tyler, the fact is that usually the time he spends with Tyler in their dreams is gruesome and kind of traumatizing. Time spent with Blurry is the exact opposite.

Saturday, they play checkers (until he realizes that Blurry is a fiend at checkers and always insists on being red. The kid has a real mind for strategy, taking all of Josh’s checkers while losing only four of his own) and even charades, though Blurry likes to guess outlandish things that don’t remotely resemble anything Josh is acting out.

On Sunday, they finger paint the bland walls of the treehouse and just talk. There is a window in the house today, paneless to let in the sound of birds and crickets.

“I see why you like it here,” Josh says, painting himself with pink hair. He frowns. Something’s missing. At last, he dips each finger in a different color paint: pointer in orange, middle in yellow, ring in green, pinky in blue, and then slathers his hand down his painting’s arm. Much better.

“It’s slow and quiet,” Blurry agrees. He’s painting shelves of sorts, filled with boxes of different sizes and colors. “So much better than being out there. Everything out there hurts. At least in here, only  _some_  things hurt.”

“Wait until you’re a teenager,” Josh replies. “Trust me. Everything hurts.”

“I hope I die before then,” Blurry says cheerfully. “Being a teenager sounds terrible.”

Josh frowns. Man, kids are impressionable. He never knows the way that Blurry will take something, and Josh always seems to be putting his foot in his mouth. “It’s hard, but it’s worth it.”

“Is it? You’d rather be here with me.”

“But I wouldn’t stay here forever. Not even if I could.”

“You can’t,” Blurry brags, smirking. He’s got a smear of paint on his forehead like he tried to scratch an itch. “There’s not many people left who stay in the Treehouse all the time. They’re dying off. Blue-Josh and Messy Hair are both gone now.”

Josh doesn’t know who either of those people are. Blurry has the habit of talking about things that Josh doesn’t understand, and the little boy doesn’t often feel like explaining. He wipes his finger clean of paint before dipping it into the black and giving the painting of himself a curly mustache as if he’s some sort of 1920’s villain. “Why are they all dying?”

“Theirselves—”

“ _Themselves_.”

“Oh, right. Themselves, and Blurryface.”

“Where is Blurryface?” Josh asks. “Still at the top of the Treehouse?”

“Nooooooo,” Blurry says. “He won’t go up there again anytime soon. He’s out in the forest right now, talking to ghosts. He’s on a scavenger hunt.”

“How do you know where he’s at?”

“How do you know where your head is at?”

“It’s always on my shoulders.”

“Exactly.”

Josh stops his painting to stand back and squint at Blurry’s. The shelves and boxes give him a strange sense of…something. Some French word. Not déjà vu, because he’s seeing this for the first time, but one of those other  _vu_  words. He should know this, but it’s unfamiliar to him. “What are you making?”

“I dunno. Just painting, I guess.”

Suddenly, Blurry freezes, fingers poised to paint another line on the wall. He’s become still like a statue, black paint dripping off of his extended pointer finger to pool on the floor. His eyes are aimed at the wall but distant, like he’s staring  _through_  the wall. There is an overwhelming silence that falls with his lack of movement.

“Blurry? You okay dude?” Josh nudges his arm and Blurry doesn’t even flinch, just continues to stare into the wall, eyes narrowing in concentration.

“Something’s wrong. Something’s wrong. So wrong. What’s wrong?” He mutters under his breath. “Something’s different. Something’s wrong.”

“Hey,” Josh says, putting his hands on Blurry’s shoulders. He tries to turn the child away, to somehow break his odd trance, but the child shrugs him off violently like the touch hurts. Where Josh has touched, paint has smeared on the younger boy’s shirt. “Hey. You’re okay. You’re safe.”

 

“Something’s different—” He gasps so violently that his whole chest heaves with it, eyes wide like the gaping of his mouth. “The forest is quiet.”

The covering over the hole at the bottom of the treehouse bursts open and into pieces. Splinters of wood fly in every direction, one scraping against Josh’s cheek when he can’t flinch away in time. He grabs Blurry’s shoulders and pulls him to the floor whether the boy wants to be moved or not, but he’s gone limp and allows himself to be dragged down.

From the opening of the Treehouse pops the grown Blurryface’s head. He is expressionless, bruises encircling his neck so deeply that they look black. Josh and Blurry cower together in the corner of the room, watching as Blurryface pulls himself into the house, covered in mud and sweat. The demon looks at the destroyed covering and his mouth twitches.

“Sorry I didn’t knock.”


	16. The Carrion and the Crow

“You could have rang the bell,” Blurry says. He wants to sound brave and funny, but his voice sounds high and squeaky like a mouse’s. Little-Blurry has never seen his older counterpart up close before. Usually when the Big Bad One enters his treehouse, he’s just passing through: on his way to the forest or higher into the branches of the tree. Whenever that happens, Little-Blurry hides in the crawl space among the scent of paints and board games, holding his breath and stopping his heart because the Bad One can hear hearts, blinks, the food moving through his tummy.

He wants to be brave, but he isn’t sure if he _can_ be. Tyler is the brave one; Tyler is the strong one. Blurry has only ever been a weak little coward, flinching at shadows and crying when he’s alone in the treehouse and scared of the dark. He decides that he can try to be brave—and he can try while hiding behind Josh. Josh is like Tyler: brave and strong. He’s a Grown Up, and the thought gives him strength. Little-Blurry clings to Josh’s side, clutching at the perforated fabric of his basketball shorts.

Blurryface, the Big and Bad, is the scariest thing that Little-Blurry has ever seen. He looks like Tyler only older, and Blurry never thought that the people who hate him or want to hurt him could look like the people he loves. That’s not fair at all—because it hurts. Tyler—no, Blurryface—looks at him like he’s mud tracked in on Tyler’s mom’s clean kitchen floor, like Little-Blurry has do-geared all of the pages of Tyler’s library book, like he’s so bad that no one could ever love him.

“The bell is out of order,” Blurryface replies. He stomps his feet, great clumps of dried mud flaking off of his shoes and all over the white floor. Little-Blurry flinches with every _thud, thud, thud_. The Bad One is dressed in all black even though it’s a million degrees outside. Rubbing his hands together like they’re cold, Blurryface moves his eyes over Josh and Blurry and the paints and the walls. Where his eyes go, goosebumps and chills bloom. He gestures at the painting. “What is this? Fucking craft hour?”

No one answers. No one dares to.

Blurryface turns his eyes on Little-Blurry, and it’s a look that has crumbled mountains, a look that has set fire to the seas, a look that has stopped the wind in its tracks. His face is deformed with fury, fists squeezing and unsqueezing as if he’s on the verge exploding like a soda bottle shaken to the point of bursting. He stoops down to grab a handful of splintered wood from the floor and throws it with all of his might at the two of them in the corner just to watch them flinch. “I _knew_ you were up to something down here you little worm.”

“Get behind me,” Josh mutters, shifting Little-Blurry until his back is flush against the corner and Josh stands between him and his older self.

“How valiant,” Blurryface says. He’s got a way of saying nice things and making them sound like the meanest words. “Useless, but valiant. Do you know—I’m really growing to hate you, _Joshua William Dun_. You’re really becoming a thorn in my side. I can’t wait to crush your skull under my heel like Eve’s offspring did to the Snake. I’m going to wear your teeth like a string of pearls around my neck. I’ll—” Blurryface stops mid-rant to point at the mustache Josh painted on his selfportrait, suddenly neutral. “Good look for you.”

“He’s all talk,” Blurry whispers. In an instant, the Bad One’s expression changes from still water to a churning sea.

“ _I WILL SHOW YOU ALL TALK, YOU LITTLE HEATHEN!_ ” Blurryface’s scream echoes through the treehouse making it shiver. He lunges and Little-Blurry squeals, molding himself into the corner of the room. Josh backs up to shield the boy with his body, arms spread wide, so brave —but Blurryface isn’t reaching for Little-Blurry. He should have known that; _that_ might have hurt less.

Instead, he reaches out and flicks Josh’s forehead. A sound like thunder booms through the Treehouse until the boards under their feet tremble. Like a puppet with the strings cut, Josh folds in on himself, collapsing into a heap on the floor. Blurryface bares his teeth like a tiger when he bends down to grab Josh’s sneakered feet, tugging him towards the other corner of the treehouse. Josh’s eyes are open and flickering wildly in fear, but he seems otherwise paralyzed.

Now. Right now. This would be the moment. If Blurry is ever going to be brave, now is the time to be. His older self is distracted, heaving Josh’s heavier body across the room, and it doesn’t take a genius to know that Josh is in Big Trouble. Little-Blurry _likes_ Josh. He doesn’t want anything bad to happen to him, and nothing might have to happen to him at all. This could be his chance to change, to be more like Tyler, to be strong and brave and save Josh and then the world.

But he doesn’t. He just stands there and cries like a _baby_ watching Blurryface tug open the crawlspace and shove Josh’s still body into the dark hole. His tears come faster at the noise Josh’s body makes when it hits wood. Blurryface closes the latch violently.

Then he turns his gaze onto Little-Blurry and the boy shudders. Blurryface is worse than the monsters in Tyler’s closet. He’s worse than whatever hides under the dark space between the bed and the floor. Those things are make believe, and this is real life, this is…this is _himself_. All of the things that he doesn’t like about himself, all of the things the kids at school and Tyler say about him have come to life. They grew up and got bigger and scarier. All of the things he is afraid to become are _real_ and standing in front of him.

“ _You._ What have you told him?”

“Nothing.” Little-Blurry’s voice is quiet and muddled with tears.

Blurryface is stalking closer like some of the big cats that live in the forest, but if you don’t mess with them, they won’t mess with you, and Blurryface doesn’t follow those rules. He’ll mess with anybody. His face has calmed now that Josh is out of sight. When he comes close, he smells like mud, musty like graveyards and shovels full of dirt. He reaches out to run his fingers through Little-Blurry’s hair, and while the touch may be tender, it makes him cry all the harder.

“Calm down,” Blurryface coos. “Shh—shhh, hush now. It’s okay. Quit crying. Just tell me every little thing that you told _him_.”

“I didn’t say nothing.”

“Nothing? Nothing about the Treehouse? Nothing about my little project? Nothing about _US?_ ”

Little Blurry struggles to think. His thoughts are all jumbled up like when he first opens a puzzle box and dumps out all the pieces. All he can think of are the good memories he’s had with Josh: Pokémon cards, stories about heroes, making paper airplanes to see whose could fly farther. His mind is like a chalkboard wiped clean of all the important things—or maybe those are the important things.

“Nothing,” Blurry hiccups. “I didn’t say nothing, I promise.”

Blurryface slaps him, hard and open-palmed. His head reels, cheek bursting with pain and ears ringing with the sound of skin on skin. Even though a tiny part of him knows that he shouldn’t (knows that this isn’t what Josh or Tyler would do), he panics. Little-Blurry lashes out to scratch at the hand tangled painfully in his hair, digging his tiny nails into the older creature’s hands, into the tender flesh of his wrists and between his thumb and forefinger. The Bad One doesn’t seem to notice and when he speaks, he sounds calm like still waters. “You’re lying to me. What did you tell him?”

“Nothing!” Blurry wails, blubbering in a way that is so embarrassing that he only cries harder thinking about it, but he’s afraid that he has more to worry about than looking cool in front of Josh. Now, he just wants to live to see Josh again, embarrassed or not. “ _Please don’t hurt me anymore! Please!_ ”

Another blow rains down, this one a closed-fist to his temple that makes his eyes go wonky and his head swim and his tongue feel numb.

“ _Please_ don’t,” he slurs. “You don’t have to do this. Why do you hurt things when you don’t have to? Because you like it? Because you’re scared?”

The Bad One tightens his grips on his hair, jerking his neck back until it pops and crackles like that cereal he used to eat after the milk is poured in. When Blurryface speaks, his voice is scarily quiet, murmured to keep Josh from overhearing. “What do you know about fear? You took the coward's way out by choosing to come to the Treehouse and stay low where it’s slow. You’ve been pampered down here: board games and fantasies of family and normalcy, but I’m not going to go easy on you. This is for your own good.”

“There’s nothing good about this,” Little-Blurry croaks. “We’re the same. Can’t we be better? I don’t want to hurt anybody. I want to be better. Please stop now, Blurry. Please.”

Blurryface reaches out to tangle both of his hands in the hair on either side of the Little One’s head, knuckles pressed tight against his skull. He moves so close that Blurry can smell his breath: dust and old moths. “We’re not the same, kiddo. Got it? You can’t compare the carrion with the crow.

“Now, you’ll get one more chance. Tell me exactly what you said to that dreamsneacking simpleton and do you know what I’ll do for you? I won’t kill you. That’s very generous; it's a good offer. Instead, I’ll cast you out of this Treehouse like God casting down the serpent of old, and I’ll let you live out in the desert where you can make the march to the sea with the other brainless creatures out there. But if you don’t— _if you don’t tell me_ —I will _strangle_ the FUCKING LIFE OUT OF YOU." 

Silence reigns over the Treehouse, broken only by the sound of Little Blurry's sobs. 

"Okay, Blurry. Showtime, kiddo. _What did you tell him?_ ”

 Little Blurry kicks the Bad One’s shin. Fear—not the ‘scared of the dark’ fear but the ‘mortal peril’ fear—makes him strong, and the widening of Blurryface’s eyes in fury is almost worth it when his grip loosens on the child’s hair. Little Blurry doesn’t have a lot of advantages, but he is small and quick, slipping under the Bad One’s arm and making a desperate break for the trapdoor.

He thinks about going for the crawlspace, about trying to help Josh. Blurryface has power in the Treehouse but not even Little Blurry is as useless as some make him out to be. He could help.

But he doesn’t. He gets both of his feet down the hole in the floor, nearly _smelling_ the musky foliage of the forest, and yeah he’s never been outside of the Treehouse before and he’s so scared but he’s going to be okay if he can just get there—

Blurryface wraps a steel-like hand around his tiny forearm when he goes to reach for the rope ladder, gripping so tight that the bones creak and grind together. With one great heave, he pulls Little Blurry back into the Treehouse, forcing him flat onto the ground and straddling his torso. He wraps his hands around Blurry’s neck, fingers long enough to overlap, and starts to squeeze. The Little One’s vision starts to swim straight away, everything turning a glossy, ringing black. The pressure behind his eyes and nose is terrible.

He’s dying. He’s going to _die_. The thought scares him more than he thought it would. Sometimes when it’s night in the Treehouse, he used to wish he was dead already, or dream of the day he would die. He liked to imagine that people would come to his funeral and cry and say that he wasn’t as ugly and stupid as they always thought. It turns out that dying sounds a lot scarier when it’s whispering in his ear like now than when he’s trying to imagine the timbre of its voice when he's alone.

Blurry’s feet kick, trying to force Blurryface’s body off of his. The only sound in the Treehouse is the thud of his feet against the floorboards and the calm breaths coming from the Bad One. He scratches at Blurryface’s hands, wraps his own around the older creature's throat, but he’s still slick with black paint from finger-painting. His fingers slip uselessly, smearing Blurryface with the dye.

It just reminds him of Josh. Finger-painting with Josh, brushing the cobwebs off of his smile with Josh—thanks to him. Josh who is lying in the dark, unable to move. Josh who is next. Maybe if Blurry had made it to the crawlspace (if he hadn’t been so selfish and scared and just thinking of himself and getting out), he could have done something—changed something. _Please wake up, Josh_ , he thinks hard, like straining will help his brain waves pass through time and space and floorboards to reach Josh in the crawlspace. He doesn’t have a lot of energy to spare; dying takes a lot of work.

 Is it so wrong that he hopes Tyler might show up and save him?

_I’m so scared._

It is his last thought.

#

The Bad One strangles the little worm for several more minutes even after he stops moving—just to be sure. Maggots such as this can be like cockroaches. You think that they’ve been squished under your shoe only to have them scurry away when you lift up and look. There won’t be any scurrying for this little bug. Blurryface will make sure of it.

When the child is blue and still, blood dripping from his eyes and nose, Blurry stands, flexing his strained fingers. What work. He reaches out to palm at his neck which stings from the childish scratches inflicted in the maggot’s last moments. His fingers come away slick with black paint. Stupid fucking crafts.

Stooping down, he lugs the bug’s body over his shoulder and lopes to the window. He pushes him out, cupping a hand to his ear to listen to the thud of flesh on dirt. Music to his ears. That cretin didn’t deserve to exist in the Treehouse anyway, dead or alive; let the wolves pick their teeth with his itty-bitty bones.

Blurryface has bigger fish to fry and bigger bones to harvest. He’s seen Josh Dun’s face for the last fucking time. Imagining the gruesome deaths he will invent _just_ for Joshua, he stalks across the room, kneeling down by the crawlspace. Throwing it open, he stares into the darkness, disbelieving what he sees.

Josh is gone.

“ _FUCK!_ ” Blurryface shouts to no one, loving the tremble of the Treehouse under his fury. Of course. Of-fucking-course. Nothing can go Blurry’s way. Everything he does, he has to do it twice through the snow uphill and with his hands tied behind his back. He can’t trust minions, can’t turn his back for five seconds without a measly teenage boy going incognito and _poof!_ vanishing into thin air. It’s just his luck.

But Blurryface doesn’t believe in luck. He makes his own. After bloodying his knuckles on the floor of the treehouse, watching his blood and the black paint mingle smeared there, he starts to feel a little better. Marginally. The gears in his head start to turn while he paces the floor, _thinking_.

 There are more ways than one to skin a cat, after all.

Blurryface starts to make a plan.


	17. God Reaches Down to Flick Your Forehead

Tyler wakes from his sleep like a swimmer surfacing from water, gulping down breaths through a throat that aches like he’s been holding back tears. He feels sticky with the phantom of sweat, but his hairline is dry when he swipes a hand at it. A dream. He’s had a dream, but the details are elusive. The more he tries to remember what happened, the more it slips away from him like sand through his fists when he tightens his grip.

It was a Bad Dream. That he knows for sure. The feeling it’s left him with is like a bad taste in the back of his mouth, like the residual pain that lasts for days after his migraines. He can’t shake it, can’t shake the thought: something _terrible_ has happened. Part of him isn’t sure if he wants to recall the details. Maybe forgetting is his minds way of sparing him something horrific, but a larger part of him suspects that this wasn’t an ordinary nightmare. It was a Special Dream, and if so, he wants to soak it up. Even a bad dream is better than no dream at all.

The silence of a sleeping house is perfect for him to close his eyes and try to remember, to sharpen the blurry images that are all that remains of his dream. He clings to them and slips to the back of his mind where the dark energy of the dream rests, pulsing with the threatening gravity of a black hole, warning him not to come too close and get lost inside. Images come to him: vice grips on his ankles as he’s tugged across a floor; his shirt riding up until rough wood scrapes the skin of his back; the painful slacking of his neck as he is pulled up from the ground; the smell of foliage and blur of green as he falls down and down and down.

He doesn’t need light to find his phone in the dark; he’s a teenager. Squinting at the screen, he sees that there are no new messages. Why should there be at nearly four in the morning on a school day? His thumb hovers over Josh’s name in his contacts, debating.

Tyler creates a new message.

**Hey. Are you okay? I hope this doesn’t wake you up if you’re sleeping. _(Sent 3:54 AM)_**

He rests the phone screen-down on his chest while he waits for a reply. Is it wrong that a part of him _does_ hope that Josh wakes up? It doesn’t matter. He’s getting used to being weird, suspects that maybe it’s a part of his DNA, a fluke in his chromosomes that has skipped the other generations in his family. After several minutes of silence, Tyler peeks at his phone.

No message—but it’s been read. What the heck. Is Josh ignoring him? As he stares, the notification to show that Josh is typing appears, then disappears, then appears again only to fade away and remain gone. Tyler blinks, unsure if he’s seeing things.

**? _(Sent 3:57 AM)_**

It is read immediately, like Josh has the conversation open and is watching. The notification appears again. Typing, then not typing, then nothing. Tyler sends another message, half of him afraid that he’s overreacting, but the other half unable to shake the feeling that something is wrong.

**Josh are you okay? Message back anything. _(Sent 4:01 AM)_**

The reply that comes through is a jumble of letters that don’t resemble words much less a sentence. It’s technically what he asked for, but it does nothing to assuage his fears. There is no moment of doubt, no hesitation. Tyler presses the call button, fumbling with his phone to press it against his ear, listening intently. It rings once, twice, thrice…Then the ringing stops. Has Josh ignored his call? But when he pulls the phone away to glance at the screen, he sees the time showing the length of their conversation ticking. He puts the phone back to his ear, holding his breath to listen.

Breathing.

“Josh?” He whispers.

There is rustling, like someone is moving the phone from one ear to another. There is a noise too quiet to be determinable—perhaps a low whine, perhaps the creaking of a bed frame. The silence is punctuated with quiet pants, exaggerated exhalations. It might be creepy if Tyler weren’t so afraid.

“Josh, are you okay?” He keeps his voice low, only dimly afraid to wake his family. If the walls are thick enough for him to play his music into the early hours of the morning, then they should be more than enough to mute the quiet sound of his voice. “Talk to me. Can you talk to me?” No response. Well—no response _is_ a response, he supposes.

“Press a button if you’re listening.”

Tyler is afraid that the following silence will last forever, but then comes the _beep_ , the dial tone of a depressed button. He breaths a little easier. “Are you okay? Once for yes, twice for no.” 

_Beep, beep._

“Are you, like, in danger?” Tyler has an image of someone breaking into Josh’s house with evil intentions, and it nearly makes him sick with fear. What if this is like a movie, and someone wants to hurt Josh? Tyler doesn’t have a very special set of skills (well, he does, but it involves mimicking Celine Dion and sinking free-throws) and there’s no way he could feasibly help Josh in any kind of dangerous situation.

_Beep, beep._

Tyler frowns, confused. Not okay, not in danger. “Panic attack?” A button is pressed.

“What can I do?” He asks, more to himself than to Josh, using his free hand to tug at his hair. Tyler feels just as useless as he might if there were an intruder. Closing his eyes, he tries to remember what he learned about in therapy to help him through the anxiety attacks that he used to have. Even though part of him fears that he’s going to choke and the knowledge won’t come when he asks it to, it _does_ come.

“Josh. Listen. Take deep breaths. Draw from your belly button. You’re having a panic attack, but it isn’t your fault, and even though it’s scary, it isn’t going to last forever; that would be impossible. Don’t bother responding, you just stay still. You don’t have to do anything except wait. Just wait it out. I’ll stay on the phone with you.” The sound of panting breaths on the other end of the line turns to deep, trembling gulps. Tyler keeps up his chant of soothing sentences until the breaths are normal enough to not be heard.

Several minutes have passed in silence when he whispers, unsure if the other boy is still awake:

“Josh?”

“Yeah?” Josh’s voice is rough like he’s been screaming instead of breathing.

“Do you want to go and get pancakes?” Tyler whispers.

#

Tyler has only ever snuck _into_ his house before, usually after late night parties with the basketball team—basic teenager stuff that his parents definitely didn’t need to know about. Sneaking in is a piece of cake: he has a key and his parents have gone to bed at the same time every night ever since Jay was old enough to sleep on a relatively normal schedule. Sneaking out induces more anxiety, maybe because (unlike previous sleuth-like endeavors) he’s sober enough to notice every creak in the stairs and the grating of the key in the lock when he closes the door behind him. The rev of the engine when he starts his car is positively cringe worthy.

But he has a feeling that Josh has it worse. He’s actually prepared to drive all the way across town only to learn that Josh hasn’t been successful in slipping out unnoticed, but when he lingers at the curb of the Dun residence, shivering with anticipation, _Josh_ slips from the shadows of the house. Unobserved, Tyler takes him in: shadows like bruises under his eyes, clothes wrinkled, hair wilder than usual. Josh’s eyes are swollen and even in the dim light that appears overhead when the older boy opens the car door, it’s easy to see his eyes are red from tears and exhaustion.

“Hey,” Josh mumbles.

“Hi,” Tyler has more to say—so much more—but it looks like Josh might be hanging on by a thread, and Tyler doesn’t want to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. He puts the car into drive and slips away into the darkness.

Driving through Columbus at four in the morning is an entirely different experience than the one he’s used to. Usually there is the trademark traffic of a bustling city. Now, the roads aren’t _dead_ necessarily, but it’s an entirely different feeling. What has these drivers on the road with him? Work? Escape? Were they wondering the same thing about him?

He glances at Josh out of the corner of his eye. The older boy is leaning his head against the passenger side window, temple against the glass. His eyes are hooded but open, staring out at the passing scenery. He hasn’t shaved in a few days, stubble blossoming on his jawline. From nowhere, Tyler wonders what the sensation would feel like, to run a palm over the roughness.

Tyler shakes his head like it will physically force the odd thought right out. Tyler isn’t a touchyfeely kind of guy. There are very specific times that he touches people who aren’t his family, and those times mostly happen on the basketball court. There are times when even that makes him uncomfortable, like the lingering congratulatory embraces when a close game ends in their favor. High fives are fine. Clasping hands with his family when his father says Grace is fine. He prefers those platonic touches.

But what’s platonic about wanting to molest another dude’s face? It’s not like he hasn’t felt stubble before. Jesus.

So lost in his thoughts, Tyler misses the turn to Denny’s and has to do a U-turn. The restaurant is empty except for a man at the bar nursing a coffee and order of bacon. They have their pick of the seats and choose a booth in the corner. Tyler lets Josh sit with his back against the wall even though that’s usually _his_ preferred spot to sit.

The waitress doesn’t ask questions about why two young guys are out at four in the morning getting pancakes at the local Denny’s. She just takes their order.

“One check,” Tyler says. Josh doesn’t fight him, elbows on the table with his head in his hands.

“Are you okay?” He asks, kindly.

Josh shakes his head. “No way.”

“Can I ask—what happened? If it’s too soon, don’t try to talk about it.”

“It’s okay. I’m better, now. I had a dream, I guess.”

“A _dream_ dream?” Josh nods, and it makes Tyler frown. “Was I there? I think I might have been —but I don’t remember much. It wasn’t like it usually is.”

“You weren’t there. At least—no. It wasn’t _you_. It was Blurryface.”

Just the name puts Tyler on edge, sirens sounding in his mind and all of him on alert. That name comes up more and more often lately. It’s a bad omen, one of signs to come. Tyler thinks of his misty reflection in the mirror when he gets out of the shower, the way sometimes he imagines that he sees someone standing over his shoulder _right behind him_. Someone who looks like him, but isn’t him. Even under the bright fluorescent lights of the restaurant, he shivers.

“You dreamed of... _him_?”

“It’s time to talk about him, I think.” When Josh looks up, his eyes are clear and focused, a far cry from the smudged misery he’d been in all the way to Denny’s. “Whatever he is, it’s really messing with my head.”

“I—I’m not _ready!_ ” Tyler stutters. Just the thought of talking to Josh about _that_ makes him nauseous with anxiety. There are some things that he promised to take to his own grave, things that he promised he would put away and never revisit. Blurryface is just one of them. “I don’t want to talk about him. I just—I don’t. You’ve got to, like, respect that.”

Josh scrubs at his closed eyes with his palms, long fingers stroking through the first few inches of his curly hair and mussing it even more. When his hands come away, his lips are downturned and defeated. “Alright,” he says. “You don’t have to talk about it.” The idea that Josh respects him (respects him enough to put aside his own desires to abide by Tyler’s wishes) shouldn’t be such a revolutionary one.

But it is, and it makes him feel guilty.

“I need to come clean, though,” Josh says. “I’ve got to say this to somebody or my head is going to explode.”

“Okay,” Tyler says, cautious. “Go ahead. Lay it on me. I’m all ears, dude.”

The waitress brings drinks, and Tyler sips at his OJ while Josh ignores his own, staring out the window into the parking lot of the restaurant. His expression is so serious, so tortured that Tyler can’t imagine what the heck Josh has been dreaming. He can’t imagine what the heck it has to do with _him_. Maybe if they’d been sharing dreams like usual, Tyler could have been there to help. The thought has more than a little bitterness in it.

 “I lied about the first treehouse.”

Tyler stares, struggling to remember exactly what Josh had even said about it. It felt like a lifetime ago. He comes up blank. Guilt eats at his stomach like the acidity of the orange juice. Whatever lie Josh had created about the first treehouse—he wasn’t alone. Tyler had lied too. The memory is there fresh behind his eyes: Josh-with-the-blue-hair’s silhouette in the moonlight, all the glowing fireflies in the forest. Eyes, he remembers.

“It’s okay. Whatever happened, you can just tell me now. It’s cool.”

Josh takes a deep breath, and like a champagne bottle with the cork pulled free, the words flow from him without cessation and seemingly without thought. It’s not very eloquent and more than a little confusing, but Tyler can only listen.

“So—the first treehouse. Yeah. Um. I don’t know what happened with you, but it didn’t happen for me the way I said. I told you that it was just an empty room, but there was someone there. It was this little kid—I thought he was you at first. He was really sad. We played Pokémon cards. Anyway, he told me tons of sad stuff about how everyone hated him and told him that he was ugly and stupid and that he was staying in the Treehouse because it was safe there. Like I said, I thought he was you at first, but he _wasn’t_. He told me he was Blurryface, which, like, woah, I still wasn’t over the whole ‘turning my eyes into drumstick holders’ thing yet. So, I left him there. I just kept on climbing. I didn’t think I’d ever be back to see him, but I did end up back there.

“I know why we don’t dream together. At least, I’m pretty sure that I know. It’s my pills that I take. When I take those, we don’t share dreams. Usually when I take them, I dream alone. I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you that earlier—I wasn’t _sure_ exactly, but…I just didn’t want to share dreams all the time.” Josh’s voice is small, and Tyler feels like he has become a still, stone statue. “Nothing against you. It’s just that we have some pretty—some pretty messed up dreams. I needed a break from Blurryface, I guess.

“When I’d take the pills, I’d usually end up in the first treehouse with the little Blurryface. He was messed up in the head, but a pretty cool kid. He beat me at checkers like, a dozen times. He was so smart.

“He was scared too, though. He warned me about Blurryface. I guess the Big Blurry has these ultra-senses or something. When we’re in the treehouse, he can pretty much always hear us. Little Blurry had that too, though, so he could let me know when it was safe for us to talk and when we had to be quiet.

“Last night—tonight, I guess, Blurryface found out about us meeting. He came in. The Big One. The Bad One. He was so _angry_ at the little one. I tried to protect him because he’s just a kid, but Blurryface was too strong. He did this weird flick thing and I couldn’t move. He put me in the crawlspace and I was stuck there. I couldn’t even blink!

“But I could hear—these terrible choking noises, and these little thuds, like Blurry was trying to get away. I tried to move, but I couldn’t. There was nothing I could do, and eventually the noises stopped. I knew that he was gone, and I knew that Blurryface would come for _me_ next. I know they’re just dreams, but they feel so real. I didn’t want him to find me, so I woke myself up.

“I kind of freaked out, though. When I woke up, it was dark, and it was like I was still down there in the crawlspace and—I freaked.” Josh’s lips are pressed together tight, and he’s busy tearing the napkin from his silverware to shreds so that he won’t have to look at Tyler. “That’s where you come in I guess.”

His eyes dart to Tyler’s but have trouble sticking there.

“You met a _little_ Blurryface,” Tyler says, just to be sure, because it sounds crazy.

“He was a kid. Not just a miniature or something.”

Tyler gives a bark of laughter because the only thing more ridiculous than imagining Blurryface as a child is imagining an exact replica only tiny. 

Josh gives weak smile, shrugging. “I just had to be sure you knew what I meant.”

The waitress arrives with steaming plates of pancakes and warm bottles of syrup and butter. The sight of it alone is almost enough to cheer Tyler up (he likes pancakes—sue him), but the heavy conversation topic hangs over the table like a low cloud, raining down thunder and lightning into their breakfast foods.

“I’m sorry that I lied to you about the treehouse. The way you reacted to me mentioning Blurryface made me feel like…I don’t know. I just didn’t want to make you feel bad.”

Tyler frowns. “Look. Don’t feel bad about it. I—I wasn’t totally truthful either.”

“What do you mean?”

“About my dream in the first treehouse. I told you that I didn’t see anything either, but that wasn’t true.”

“What did you see?”

“You. Only you were old and sad.”

It’s Josh’s turn to frown. “That sounds terrible.”

“It was terrible. You killed yourself—took a bunch of pills. There was nothing I could do to stop you. It was too late. I couldn’t help but think that it was…”

“What?” Josh asks. Their pancakes grow colder, untouched between them. “Thought it was what?”

“The future. Maybe.”

“Being old and sad and killing myself is my future? No way.” Despite the confidence of his words, Josh still looks shaken.

“But you can see why I didn’t want to tell you that, right? I mean, it’s not exactly a conversation starter.”

“Yeah, I get it. What about tonight? When you messaged me, you said that you’d had a dream.”

“Oh!” Tyler cries out, just remembering it for himself. “It’s what woke me up. I’m almost positive that it was one of _our_ dreams, but I can’t remember it the way that I do the others. You know, how every detail seems crystal clear, like you could live one hundred years and never forget a moment of it. This dream though, I can only remember bits and pieces of. Someone was dragging me across the floor, and then they pushed me and I fell. I think I was falling out of the Treehouse.”

“It sounds like you _were_ little Blurryface.”

“No way. That would mean—” Yeah. Tyler doesn’t even want to finish the sentence, let alone the thought. No. No way. Across the table, Josh groans, saving him from completing his sentence.

“I just don’t know. I don’t know anything about these dreams. They’re so confusing, like, nothing makes any sense. The way that Blurryface was talking made it sound like he had a plan or something. Like he was _up to something._ ”

Tyler stays silent. For the first time, he wishes that he and Josh had never started sharing dreams. It seems to have opened a can of worms that was much better sealed—because really, what a stupid old saying. Who the heck wants a can of worms, anyway? Tyler isn’t used to thinking about Blurryface, much less talking about him like he’s a real person.

It gives Blurryface too much power, and it reminds him of too many dark memories.

“Whatever is going on isn’t anything to be concerned about. These are dreams. Just dreams.”

“Well these _dreams_ are messing with my head. _That’s_ real. I feel like somebody I care about died. _That’s_ real. I don’t care if it’s just a dream anymore. The things going on inside my head feel real, and that’s good enough for me.” Josh’s face crumbles. “You didn’t have to listen to him die. He was just a kid. The noises he made—I can’t stop hearing them.”

Tyler feels a stab of sympathy in his gut, sharp as the fork clenched in his hand. “I’m sorry. If I knew how to help, then I would.”

Josh shakes his head. “No. I know. I know that you would. I just wish that I knew what Blurryface was up to. If we knew what his next move was, then maybe I could wrap my head around it and be prepared.” Head turning, the older boy catches sight of something out in the parking lot. His face smooths, worry slipping away. “Look—the sun. It’s coming up.”

Tyler turns. The sky which has been lightening steadily throughout their meal is dawning the palest pink infused with cool yellow. Josh’s smile, his pure pleasure in something so simple makes him seem older. For some reason despite the other boy’s peaceful happiness, Tyler can imagine that Josh-with-the-blue-hair isn’t such an impossible reality. The thought is downright frightening.

Unsettled, Tyler says nothing, choosing instead to focus on his breakfast.

#

Josh has Tyler drop him off at the end of his street. He’ll have an easier time of sneaking back into his house that way. His limbs still feel tight and trembling from his panic attack in the morning, leaving his body feeling like it’s just run a marathon. Eyes aching with exhaustion, he salutes Tyler through the dark fog of the windshield and starts trudging through his neighbors’ yards towards his own. It’s barely six in the morning, and on a Monday, no one else in his house should be awake yet. Knowing his luck, they’ve all been up for hours reviewing security cam footage of his terrible attempt at sneaking out, laughing and determining horrific punishments for him to suffer through.

But when he gently unlocks the back door with the key under the flowerpot, his house is still quiet and dark. He moves as carefully as he can down the hall, skipping the spots that creak. In his room he collects a pile of clothes, dry swallowing a pill for his anxiety, and then goes straight to the shower, turning the water on hot enough to scald himself.

He nearly falls asleep under the stream, letting his eyes close and the hot water beat against his chest. There’s something therapeutic about showers. It’s borderline supernatural. The heat and the sounds muffled on the tile…

The thud, thud, thud of tiny feet against the floorboards as Little Blurry struggles to buck off his attacker—

“Josh!” Someone is pounding on the door. It’s his father. “Josh, there are five other people in this house, save some hot water for the rest of us.”

Hands shaking, Josh reaches out to shut off the water. His fingers are pruned, and he has no idea how long he’s been standing there. Immediately, he misses the water’s warmth, shivering.

After he’s dressed, he trudges to the kitchen. He’s not very hungry since breakfast with Tyler, but he could really use a Red Bull to get through the day. Hair dripping, he peers into the refrigerator, flinching at the chill on his damp clothes. At the kitchen table, his mother is on the phone.

“I don’t care how many days she’s missed. There were extenuating family circumstances. Are you people _human?_ I pay _you_ for Christ’s sake. Ashley is sick, she can’t even get out of bed. I don’t know how you parent, but I’m not forcing my child to go to school when she’s ill. Oh, truancy is a _crime?_ You know what’s a crime? Charging parents thousands of dollars only to hold their children to inhuman standards. I’m finished speaking with you. Is there another secretary I can speak with? One who knows the meaning of humanity and competence? Yeah, I’ll fucking hold.”

Josh has frozen, finger on the tab of the Red Bull can to watch his mother with wide eyes. His mother is usually the picture of sweetness and patience. She’s still in her bathrobe, face turning red with repressed rage. The sight and sound of her anger makes him anxious, like he’s five years old again taking pots and pans from under the cabinet to make makeshift drum sets.

She catches sight of him staring and gives him a tense smile, one he tries to return. Things aren’t back to normal yet since he lost his job (there’s an air of stress in the house, tension like a coiled spring ready to be released). His parents are tense with each other; he’s tense with Ashley; Abigail and Jordan are both conduits that the stress flows through. Things aren’t good, but Josh has plans to look for a new job, like, ASAP. Maybe two. Whatever it takes to make things better.

He kisses his mom on the cheek on his way to the living room but pauses when he sees Jordan wringing his hands, pacing in the hallway. He’s clearly having some kind of eleven-year-old crisis. On instinct, Josh moves to avoid him, to slip by and out the door without his brother seeing —but then the guilt hits. How could he do that?

“Jordan. What’s up?”

The look of relief on Jordan’s face when he’s sees Josh is so stark it hurts. Jordan looks up to Josh like Josh is some kind of hero, only Josh doesn’t feel very heroic. Not at all. “It’s my jokes. They aren’t working. Nobody’s laughing.”

See? Eleven-year-old crisis. Josh nearly rolls his eyes with relief. “Your jokes are hilarious, bro. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Hope lights like a flame behind his brother’s eyes. “Really? You’re not just saying that?”

“Nope. You kill it, every time.”

“Thank _God!_ Okay, I gotta go.” He sprints off towards his bedroom, and Josh waits until he hears the door slam before continuing on his way out of the house.

Crisis averted. Maybe Josh _is_ a hero of sorts.

The fact is that he couldn’t save little Blurry. It was impossible. The evil Blurryface clearly has some sort of magic, some type of supernatural skill, and Josh? Josh is just Josh. There’s no way he could compete against that. What happened to the little Blurryface was terrible—tragic even, but it was beyond him. It was behind him.

Those noises though. He couldn’t forget the noises.

He waves to Tyler when he spots the other boy gathered around with the other students outside the front doors before the first bell. Tyler gives a salute, a throwback to Josh’s earlier that morning. Josh turns away to smother his grin, but the smile dies on his face.

Sophia is standing there, pale face upturned to stare at his. She’s got ocean-eyes and a teal scarf that shouldn’t match at all with their navy uniforms, but what does Josh know about fashion? Her smile isn’t up to its usual snuff, and all at once Josh remembers the telephone number in his pocket and the text he’d meant to send her.

“Oh my god,” he blurts out.

“Um—sorry—what’s that?”

“I forgot to text you. See, I was going to, but then I got fired from my job and everything kind of imploded and—”

She laughs, and her smile is the most gracious, kindest thing he’s ever seen. “It’s okay. I figured you just got busy. No big deal.”

“Totally a big deal. Really. I’m so sorry.”

“ _Really._ It’s okay. What did you say—fired?”

Suddenly, Tyler is there, standing adjacent to them, watching their back-and-forth conversation. His sudden presence makes Josh nervous, especially the way he seems to be appraising them with dark, thoughtful eyes. “Uh—hey, Tyler.”

Tyler ignores him. “Hey Sophia. How was your weekend?”

Sophia raises a delicate, manicured eyebrow. Were girls’ eyebrows born like that, or did it take effort? Her smile is genuine, and she tucks blonde hair behind her ear, squinting a little against the breeze. “Hey, Ty. My weekend was good. How about yours?”

“Great,” Tyler says. “I wanted to talk to you about doing something special for Ms. Dunfrey. Her birthday is coming up October first.”

Sophia looks at Tyler like he’s just grown a second head and _it’s_ started talking to her. “Ms. Dunfrey. The cheer coach? How do you know her birthday?”

“I know everyone’s birthday, not a big deal. Do you know what _is_ a big deal? Turning fifty-four. That’s crazy. We should really go all-out.” He slings an arm around Sophia’s tiny shoulders (Josh notices that Tyler’s arm hovers just above her, avoiding the touch) to steer her away. He looks over his shoulder, baring his teeth in the attempt of a smile at Josh. “Do you mind, bro? Sick. Thanks, dude.”

 Josh blinks. What just happened?

The bell rings. He falls in with the mass of students taking half-steps to avoid tripping over each other as they move towards the double-doors. While entering the combination to his locker, he can’t help but feel like there’s something he’s forgetting, something important. He hates that feeling when something is on the tip of his tongue, tickling at the back of his brain.

The warning bell rings while he’s still thinking. Making sure his phone is off, he leaves it on the tiny metal shelf. He grabs the rest of his books and closes his locker.

If he can’t remember, then it can’t have been that important.

#

“Alright, so I made a basic sketch for the Treehouse.”

“Dude. It’s sick.”

“Right? I didn’t fall asleep until late because I was working on it. I could tell by your portfolio that you really dig unique colors and you mix your own paints. I was thinking that we could go with my outline and I can leave you in charge of the colors. What do you think?”

“Who are they?” He lets his finger hover over the top of the Treehouse. There, the vague outline for two figures sit, one notably taller than the other, backs to the viewer, staring off into the forest. Josh frowns. Tyler isn’t _that_ much taller than him.

Right?

“Oh. Yeah, well they were going to be us, but now I’m thinking about making them little Blurry and Blue Josh. Kind of like a tribute. I could tell that what happened really bothered you, so I changed the picture second period.” Tyler looks unsure, reaching a hand back to wipe anxiously at the back of his neck. Josh is stricken, throat uncharacteristically tight.

“Bro, that’s perfect. What’d you say about Blue Josh? What’s Blue?”

“Oh—you had blue hair in the dream. Tattoos too. See, your arm is all swirly? I’m going to try to remember exactly what it looked like, but it was kind of dark in the dream.” Blue Josh. Little Blurry had mentioned that very title.

“I love it. It’s awesome.”

“Really? You mean that? I mean, you aren’t just saying that, right?”

“What did I just say? It’s sick. Seriously. This is going to end up in the Metropolitan.”

Tyler shrugs, obviously pleased with Josh’s reaction. “I was going for the Louvre, but that’ll do I guess.”

“I mean, the Louvre will _try_ to get a hold of it, but the Metropolitan has home-country advantage.”

Tyler snorts. “Home country advantage? I don’t think that’s a thing, Josh.”

“You heard me. You’ll probably turn down the extra money and let it be shown in New York just for the principle of the matter.”

“ _We_ will turn down the money,” Tyler corrects, grinning.

Josh really likes the sound of that. His ears feel hot, the word echoing again and again in his head.

We. Tyler and Josh. Together. One unit. One collaboration. Sick. As. Frick. He tries not to smile like a goofy idiot. “Right— _we_.”

“Anyway, I kind of like the thought of them sitting on top of the Treehouse while it’s burning, but they don’t look concerned. Or maybe they’re just enjoying what time they have left. It’s kind of symbolic, don’t you think?”

“Definitely. I totally get what you’re saying.”

That was obviously the right thing to say. Tyler beams, his whole face lighting up. They spend the rest of the period going through Josh’s portfolio to pinpoint some of the colors that he custom created that might work. Josh keeps meticulous track on a piece of lined paper that he tucks into his binder when the bell rings.

A part of Josh kind of hopes that Tyler will invite him to sit by him at lunch. They could keep talking about their art project, or just talking in general. The conversations he has with Tyler that don’t have to do with art or dreams are some of his favorites. He thinks to ask—he’s not above groveling, even—but hesitates and misses his chance. All of Tyler’s basketball and cheerleading friends would be there. Even if he invited Tyler back to _his_ table, all of his own friends (could he call the acquaintances he had during school hours friends?) would be there, which he’d rather not subject Tyler to.

If only they could break away and find their own table together. That would be perfect.

 _Oh well,_ he thinks to himself. _Some other day._

#

It’s fourth period when everything goes to hell. Some bad days build up, but other comes out of nowhere when God reaches down to flick you in the forehead. Halfway through his final class of the day, a note arrives calling him to the Dean’s office. It says to bring his stuff with him. There are no childish _ooo’s_ from the rest of the class—just an overwhelming silence. There’s never a good reason to be called into the Dean’s office.

His stomach only drops further when he sees his mother sitting in the secretary’s office. The Dean’s door is closed and thick enough to obscure any voices that might be inside. The look on his mother’s face is volatile at best.

“What are you doing here?” Josh asks.

“Shouldn’t I be asking you?” She replies coolly. Her eyes turn to the secretary who is watching them closely, gently wrinkled hands folded in front of her. “Did Dean Whitlock mention what was so urgent that I needed to miss work?”

The secretary shakes her head, lips tight. “He did not. If you’d like, I could call in one of the more _competent_ secretaries. One of them might know. Would you prefer that, Mrs. Dun?”

His mother’s face goes white with restrained fury, and she only barely manages to bite her tongue.

Things only get worse when the Dean’s door opens and Josh catches a glimpse of who is inside.

Tyler Joseph.

An older, blond woman.

Miss Teague.

It all begins to fall into place. He turns to his mother, reaching out to grab her arm. Afraid that his grip is too tight, he lets go and pats at it urgently like he’s a five year old tugging at her skirt for her attention. “Mom. Listen. No matter what you hear in there—I’m not some kind of crazy Charles Manson. Okay?”

“ _What?_ ”

“I’m serious. Please. I’m not crazy. I’m not violent—”

“Joshua? Mrs. Dun? If you could come this way.”

It’s a tight fit, six people inside the Dean’s tiny office. Dean Whitlock gets the most space behind his large, oaken desk, polished to gleam. He’s a relatively young man for the position he holds, though he is going prematurely gray. Today, he looks even older. The glance Tyler gives Josh is urgent and frightened, his blond mother sitting beside him, ankles crossed primly. Miss Teague haunts the corner of the room, freckles standing out harshly on her pale face.

His mother takes one of the last two open seats like she owns it.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Dun. I’m sorry to call you in here on such urgent terms. Have you met our art teacher, Miss Teague?” Dean Whitlock makes half-hearted introductions.

“Call me Eliza,” Teague says from the corner. Josh refuses to look at her in case the expression on his face is so violent it’s considered a threat. He stares at his hands instead, gripping them tightly in his lap.

“Call me Laura. Is Josh’s art not up to snuff?” His mother asks wryly. “Because I don’t see how that can merit a disciplinary meeting. And who is this?”

“Hi Mrs. Dun,” Tyler says. “I’m Tyler Joseph.”

“ _The_ Tyler?”

Oh, God. Josh wishes for death. He searches the Dean’s desk frantically with his eyes looking for anything sharp that he might be able to stab himself in the throat with. There are pens that look promising.

“That’s me,” Tyler says weakly. “Nice to meet you.”

“No, it isn’t.” Tyler’s mother reaches out to put a hand on her son’s shoulder and hush his premature rebuttal. “Pardon my French, but what the hell is wrong with your son, _Laura?_ ”

“Excuse me?” Josh’s mother answers lowly.

“If we can’t all be civil here,” the Dean says, speaking loudly over both women’s voices. “Then I’ll have to ask you to wait outside, Mrs. Joseph. Miss Teague—if you’ll explain.”

Teague spills all, telling his mother about the journal she found and the entries she read, about the horrifically explicit things she read there, the gruesome violence subjected to fictional Tyler by her own son. Her explanation only lasts moments, but it feels like a lifetime. His whole life flashes before his eyes. He feels like he’s going to be sick, he’s so afraid. What’s going to happen to him?

What’s his mother going to _do_ to him?

When Miss Teague finally finishes her tale (adding in that Josh told her to _leave him the hell alone_ ), the office is so still that it hurts.

No one moves.

No one breathes.

“Well,” his mother says at last. “I don’t believe you.”

Josh gapes, head snapping up so quickly that it hurts. Tyler coughs.

“You heard me. I don’t believe you. I know my son. He’s—troubled, but that’s because he’s going through things, things that some grown adults probably wouldn’t even understand.” Josh puts his head in his hands because staring at the confidence—at the utter surety on his mother’s face might break him. He might shatter into a thousand glass pieces that will be ground into the carpet of the Dean’s Office and reside there for all eternity.

“You think she’s making this up?” Mrs. Joseph jabs a thumb at Teague.

“Well, I don’t see any proof.”

“Ask your _son_ to show this notebook.”

Josh’s breath catches. The notebook. Where is it? In the pile of books left in the secretary’s office? But no—he left it at home. He’s positive of it. There is no proof. For a moment, Josh sees a light at the end of the tunnel. “I don’t have it,” he affirms. “It’s at home.”

Miss Teague makes a gentle noise from the corner. She bends down to the satchel lying at her feet and all of Josh’s brief hopes are dashed to pieces, because his hopes are just as much made of glass as he is. “Excuse me, but I made copies.”

It’s passed around the room. When it reaches Tyler, the boy waves his hand at it, urging it away from him. Josh can only barely see him with his head in his hands again. His mother finally gets the photocopied pages and flips through them, first quickly, then more slowly. Her shoulders slump. The disappointment that radiates off of her is physically tangible.

“Can you see why we have reason to be concerned, Mrs. Dun?” Dean Whitlock asks.

His mother doesn’t answer. She’s too busy staring at her son, looking for answers. All at once, it’s too much. Josh stands so quickly that he knocks the chair prone. He makes a break for the door, throwing it open, ignoring the shouts behind him. Shouts from the Dean, from Tyler, from his mother.

Josh makes it out of the secretary’s office and doesn’t stop there. He starts to jog through the empty hall, pausing to jerk open his locker and grab his empty bag and cellphone. There comes the click of shoes on the floor, the squeak of sneakers as someone chases him, so he slams his locker and runs for it. He braces for impact at the end of the hall, pushing through the doors of the school with his shoulder and picking up speed in the parking lot. Feet thudding against the pavement, he starts to run. It’s the most illogical thing he’s ever done—he’s literally fucking _running_ from his problems, like the more distance he puts between him and the school, the easier it might be to breathe.

It’s not. It’s not easier to breath at all. Running actually makes that harder (go figure) until he’s panting behind a dumpster in the alley between a Chili’s and a dollar store. He throws up there, gagging, sharp pains in his sides and thighs and heart and everywhere else. He wishes he were dead so that he’d never have to go back and face his mother’s disappointment. What’s she going to believe, that it was a _dream?_ That it was _make believe._ Yeah, fucking right. They’ll lock him up. They’ll have him committed.

After his breath comes back to him, he wipes the back of his hand against his mouth and keeps walking. He sticks to back alleys in case someone comes looking for him on the main roads. There’s no destination in mind, just aimless wandering. He’d wander right out of the city if that’s the route that presents itself.

He’d wander right off of a bridge, if he could.

Instead, he just wanders. Hours pass. Traffic picks up letting him know that it must be passed five. His phone is in his pocket, but he isn’t ready to turn it on yet. He’s not sure what messages he might find there. He’s even more afraid that there won’t be any messages at all, that his family and Tyler will see his absence as a blessing. _Josh is gone? Who the heck cares._

In his wallet, he finds a last few crumpled dollar bills and stops at a Starbuck’s. The coffee is overrated, but he gets one anyway to feel the warmth in his hands. Now that the sun has gone down, it’s too cold to be wandering around without a jacket. Numb fingers starting to warm, he wishes that the heat to sink right into his bones. He feels numb, and it’s impossible to stop shaking.

_God, if you’re listening, please help me. Please help me._

There’s no answer.

When the employees start to give him looks for sitting and nursing one small coffee for over an hour, he reluctantly moves back out onto the street, gritting his teeth against the chill. The streetlights have come on, warm, maudlin glows that line the streets. Overhead are stars and the moon, barely visible over the bright lights of the city and traffic.

While he walks, he tries to make plans. Running away seems like the best option. There’s still some money left in his savings, and kids his age drop out of school all the time. He can go somewhere new, get a job, and spend his whole life working himself to death. Surely his mom wouldn’t turn down his money, right? God, the thought is terrible.

He’s walking for nearly thirty minutes, lips dry, coffee cold, feet aching, when a car screeches to a halt next to him. Josh has just turned down a side street with minimal traffic. For a moment, he thinks that he’s about to be kidnapped—and he _couldn’t care less._ The driver’s side door opens and the face that appears is familiar and oh-so-welcome. Josh hadn’t even known how welcome, not until he saw it.

“Josh, Jesus Christ, where the hell have you been?” Tyler comes around to open the passenger door and usher Josh in like they’re teenagers in a romantic movie and Tyler’s being chivalrous. The car is warm and Josh nearly falls asleep just while Tyler makes the trip back around the car to get back into the driver’s seat.

“Thanks,” Josh slurs. “I think I was lost.”

“Josh. Turn on your phone.”

“Huh?”

Tyler turns out, pulling onto the main road. He’s not headed towards Josh’s house, but deeper into the city.

“My house is the other way.”

“Turn on your phone.” Tyler’s hands are so tight on the wheel that Josh worries he’s going to snap it in two.

He works his numb fingers into his pocket and pulls his phone free, seeing himself in its dark, empty reflection. Holding the power button, it buzzes in his hand while the loading screen comes.

Slowly, an influx of messages arrive. Twenty-one missed calls, a dozen voicemails, and six text messages, all from his mother. He opens the texts because they’re easiest.

**Josh, pick up the phone.**

**Ashley is hurt.**

**Come to the hospital ASAP.**

**Josh where are you? Please call me**

**How many pills were left of your medicine? The doctor’s need to know.**

**Please call me. She’s bad. School doesn’t matter. Come to the hospital.**


	18. Ashes to Ashes

Ashley wakes on the last Monday of September with peace in her heart. It is the best night’s sleep she’s had in weeks. Even after she has shut off the alarm on her phone, she makes no move to rise; she won’t be going to school today. Closing her eyes, she basks in the quiet sunlight streaming through the window, soaking it up for the last time. There aren’t any quiet breaths or rustling of sheets from across the room, so Abigail must be awake already and getting ready for school.

Abigail. Her face is easy to conjure in Ashley’s mind, but it hurts. She puts it aside. There is no room for hurting today. There will be no more pitiful crying in her room, no more nights pacing the floor with her hands over her mouth in case she starts screaming and wakes her sister and family. All the chaos has been bled from her. Now there is only room for decisive action, and with it comes peace.

In the sun, it’s easy for her to find her peace. Part of her can pretend that she’s already dead and that maybe this is the sort of afterlife that awaits her. Her Christian upbringing says differently; suicide is a grievous sin—but what about martyrdom? Isn’t that suicide, in a way? Death for a cause? Isn’t that rewarded—revered? Her death is a sacrifice. No matter what she has learned at church, no part of her believes that God will punish her for sacrificing herself for her family.

Torn to pieces and stuffed towards the bottom of the little trash can by her writing desk is a list of reasons for and against her own death. The FOR column was a much more lucrative writing project, but reason number one is that Ashely is more use to her family dead than she is alive. Alive, she is a parasite, sucking away their money and wasting their food. Dead, at least she isn’t a burden. Being a burden is the worst thing she could be.

A gentle knock on the door. When she calls out, it’s her mother’s face that appears in the crack between the door and the frame. Her mother looks older, aged too soon. It strikes her that this could be the last time Ashley sees her own mother. What will she think when she finds her daughter’s body? Will they cry for her loss and pray for her soul? Will they think that she’s selfish? She hopes not.

“Hey, Ashley. Getting up for school?”

She shakes her head. The tears that come are natural. Tears of relief. Anxiety. Excitement. When she speaks, her voice is croaky. “Momma, I feel sick.”

Her mother's lips press together tightly. “You missed so many days last week already. What hurts?”

“My stomach. I can barely sit up.”

“Cramps?”

“That was last week.” Tears flow from the corners of her eyes trailing over the bridge of her nose to get lost in the forest of her hair. Her mother is frowning, but unconvinced. For the first time since she decided on her plan late last night, she feels fear. There are so many things that could go wrong, little hiccups in the road that could completely unseat her. “Please momma. I’ll go tomorrow no matter what. Just give me one more day. I feel so sick.”

Her mother sighs. “Okay, Ashley. One more day. If you’re sick tonight, I’m calling the doctor and we’re making you an appointment. Deal?”

“Deal.”

“Go back to sleep, alright? Get some rest.” She closes the door behind her with the quietest of clicks before Ashley can even call out with her love.

Until the door is thrown open again—but now it’s only Abigail. She’s dressed in her tiny school uniform, but her hair is still knotted and standing in different directions, unbrushed and matted from sleep. The look she gives Ashley is unmuted envy.

“How come _you_ get to stay home from school,” she mumbles. Toeing off her tennis shoes, Ashley sees that she’s forgone socks. Abigail goes to her bottom dresser drawer and starts rifling through, noisily looking for a pair. She comes up with red ones.

“Don’t be mad at me,” Ashley murmurs. Abigail rolls her eyes, shoving her feet into her socks and then stepping into her shoes without untying them. “Hey. Come and give me a hug.”

The look Abigail gives her is wide-eyed like Ashley has suggested they run off and join the circus as clowns. “You _are_ sick, huh?”

But she comes over, leans down to the bed, and wraps her tiny arms around Ashley. For a moment, Ashley doesn’t even need the sun. The moment passes. Wriggling away, Abigail gives an awkward, toothy grin and disappears out the bedroom door, closing it loudly behind her. The silence that lingers afterward is just as loud. What kind of woman will Abigail grow up to be? Ashley wonders wistfully. A very good one, she imagines.

She slips back into the sunlight. Ashley has slept every night and woken every morning in this bed for as long as she could remember, staring at the same window, and it’s certainly not the _sun_ that’s changed. Then why does it all feel so different? All these years, and she’s never found such peace in it. All these years, and she’s never appreciated it the way she does now. The warmth on her skin goes deeper than that; it touches her bones. Glancing at the clock, she estimates that she has only a few hours left before she needs to start executing her plan and herself.

She might as well enjoy the sun while she can.

But every plan has its faults. Her eyes close in the warmth and when they open, it is early afternoon. The sun is no longer directly in her window, but her sheets are damp with sweat. Ashley doesn’t need to see the clock to know that she has slept too long. Scrambling out of bed, she reaches for her phone, jabbing her finger at the home button until the screen lights up. She should be dead by now.

Heart thumping, she chews on her nail, staring at the time. Does she have enough? Is it too late? Should she put off her plans to wait for another day? But waiting brings its own complications: a doctor’s appointment for a problem she doesn’t really have; more time to waste her family’s resources. More time to be a general fuck up and hurt the ones she loves.

No. Today. It has to be _today_.

Ashley tries to soothe her frantic heart. She struggles to find the peace that she held earlier, searching the corners of her heart and mind and coming away empty handed. Fine then—she doesn’t need peace. She just needs resolve.

Under her pillow are her journal and favorite pen. Clasping them to her chest, she moves to the medicine cabinet in the bathroom which holds her ultimate method of self-destruction. After sitting her journal carefully on the floor, she removes bottle after bottle. Acetaminophen for fevers. Ibuprofen for headaches. Midol for cramps. Then gold mine: hydrocodone for her dad’s kidney stones last year, expired, with a dozen pills left. For good measure, she creeps into Josh’s bedroom. On his nightstand is a bottle mostly full, but she doesn’t touch it. Josh needs those.

  _Inside_ the nightstand rests a bottle that is full, still in the brown bag the doctor sent him home with. She takes those and adds it to the line-up she’s forming on the flat edge of the bathtub.

The bathtub is the best place for her. Dying can get messy, but Ashley wants there to be as little to clean up as possible. The idea that her family might have to pick up her mess is the worst thing she can think of. She could _never_ do that to them. If she’s lucky, she hopes that she’ll disintegrate and they can just flush her down the drain.

Just outside of the tub she places one, two, three full cups of water that she retrieves from the kitchen, glasses making crisp noises against the tiled floor when they each take their place. Once she starts taking the pills, she worries that she won’t be able to make it to the kitchen sink (or to the bathroom sink just a few feet away, for that matter). With nothing left to do, she picks up her journal and notebook from where she’s placed them and steps into the tub. It’s curved and uncomfortable on her back.

 _There won’t be anything comfortable about dying, Ashley,_ she tells herself. _Better get used to it._

Before she can begin, she opens Josh’s pills. They’re for anxiety, and she hopes that taking them will bring back that feeling she had in the sun. Dumping them out, she rolls them in her palm: they’re so tiny. Easy to swallow. She doesn’t keep count; she doesn’t want to psych herself out. She focuses on the water in the glass instead, watching the glass become emptier and emptier. The pills run out before the water does.

Then, she starts to write. It’s very important that she lets her family know that what’s happened to her wasn’t their fault. It’s important that she lets them know how much she loves them. She focuses on their faces: her mother’s gentle eyes that can forgive her anything, Josh’s smile when he nails a drum fill, her father, Jordan, Abigail. Part of her hurts to think of them. She writes and writes even when the words move on the page and her head feels funny.

Eventually, the whole page is full. She can’t remember a word, but she adds her love and signs her name even though the dead body in the tub should speak for itself. Slipping the book out of the tub, it knocks over the mostly-empty cup of water. Ashley stares at the tiled walls because they seem to be moving. Breathing. There’s a sound in her head, loud and low. Is that real, or is that inside her, or can those two ideas coexist?

Across the room, the bathroom window opens, and someone crawls inside. It’s someone familiar but perhaps the last person she would have expected to see.

“Tyler Joseph,” she mumbles.

He smiles, wide, like a shark. “Close.”

#

Tyler sits on the edge of the tub, feet inside and mingling against her own. Ashley’s head is buzzing like it’s full of bees and her eyes have trouble staying in one place for long. When her gaze drifts over the boy’s face, he staring at her intensely, a look that gives her unpleasant shivers.

“What are you doing here?” She asks him. “Shouldn’t you be at school?”

“School isn’t important right now,” he says, clasping his hands together, flecks of black paint chipping free. Tyler’s voice is naturally quiet and flinty, very soothing. It’s in direct opposition with his wide, empty eyes that flicker all over her face like he’s committing it to memory. No one’s ever looked at her that way before; like they don’t want to forget what she looks like. Why is it making her skin crawl? “I’m here to escort you to the afterlife, Ashes. Can I call you Ashes? I think that’s one of my favorite words.”

“Call me whatever you want,” she says. “What about my family? Will they be okay?”

Tyler’s smile is visible even through the haze of her vision. He speaks slowly, enunciating carefully. “I cannot emphasize enough the quality of _care_ I will contribute to your precious family.”

Ashley nods, tears of relief clinging to her lashes. To hear that her family will be taken care of is all that she’s wanted. “Thank you. Thank you so much. Yes. I’m ready.”

“All packed? Do you have your wallet, keys, socks and extra underwear?”

“Huh?”

Tyler sighs, rolling his eyes. “Never mind. Unfortunately, Ashes, your work here isn’t finished yet.” He nudges at the bottles of pills on the edge of the tub. “We can’t leave the job unfinished, can we? I can see that you’re struggling. Luckily, I’m here to help you. Please don’t worry about repaying me; I’m sure we can find a way to settle the score later.”

He hands Ashley the glass of water and then the pills, one at a time.

“I have to keep going?” She feels so _funny_. Is the job really unfinished? Her words struggle to come out properly, all overlapping, drawn-out consonants. After trying to repeat herself for the third time, Tyler holds up a hand.

“Please stop with the obnoxious slurring. I know your thoughts.”

 _You don’t look much like an angel_ , Ashley thinks. She grimaces at the taste when it takes too long for her muscles to cooperate to swallow and the pills dissolve a little on her tongue. It’s a little weird, in general, to think that God would send an angel who looks like Tyler Joseph to escort her into the afterlife. He’s dressed in all black. Aren’t angels supposed to be heavenly, swathed in whites and ivories and pearls?

Tyler smiles, voice cheerful, a mask. “That’s not very fucking nice to say, you know. Didn’t your mother teach you any manners or that looks can be deceiving? After all, look at yourself: you’re a little rat, but you’re getting the royal treatment from me, aren’t you? Here is a valuable lesson for you, Ashes: think before you speak. Hold out your hand—here are more pills. You’re really slow, do you know that? Can you take two at a time? We’re really on a time crunch.”

Ashley tries to do as Tyler asks, but it’s not as easy as it was at first. The hydrocodones are larger and get caught in her throat. She looks down at the pills in her hand and the image swims, four pills constricting into two, then swelling into eight. When she glances up to show Tyler what the pills are doing, the words die in her throat. Whatever is sitting on the edge of the tub watching her isn’t Tyler Joseph anymore. It’s got a human shape but is made of darkness and smoke, a shadowy smear where the light won’t touch. From where its face should be, pierce two red eyes that are _staring at her._

Mechanically, she raises one of the pills to her mouth, swallows with the last of the water. _This isn’t Tyler._

The shadow plucks the empty glass from her hand and replaces it with a full one. Its fingers are too long and thin for its hands, elegantly tipping the pill bottle into her open palm with a gentle tap. When the creature speaks, its voice is far too deep to be human, a timber she feels in her guts and bones. “I never said I was.”

 _Who are you?_ She thinks, clenching her fist around the pills. The next thought comes to her and makes her chest ache with sadness and fear. _You’re not taking me to Heaven, are you?_

She imagines that the grotesque twisting of the shadow’s face is meant to be a smile. It holds up its hands, shoulders shrugging in a display of childlike irresponsibility and indifference. “Maybe I am. Maybe _I_ am the Way. I am the Truth. I am Death. _Your_ Death. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and we all fall down. Those are pretty words, aren’t they? I can see by your face that you disagree. Well, I hope that even if you can’t like them, you can appreciate them. They make powerful stanzas.”

Ashley starts to cry. Her stomach aches and twists with nausea. She holds out her hand with the pills to give them back. _I don’t think I want to take any more._

“You have to. Think of your family, Ashes. You’re a waste of space to them, and space is an increasingly precious commodity. You’re doing this for them, aren’t you? I read your note and I know your thoughts. You’re afraid that they will think you’re selfish for killing yourself, but the truth is that they will think you’re selfish if you live. You don’t have a choice.”

She tries to press the pills into the shadow's hand, fingers shaking. _I don’t want to anymore. I changed my mind._

“ _You don’t get to change your mind._ Here is your ultimatum. You will take the pills and finish the job, or I will pick off your family members like plucking the petals from a flower. I’ll start with the youngest and work my way up. Would you like that? _Would you?_ ” The creature’s bellow echoes off of the tiles and makes her ears ache. It’s hard to see through her tears, and her hands tremble so badly that she’s afraid she’ll drop the pills in her palm altogether—but she doesn’t. She presses her open palm to her mouth, crunching the pills under her teeth. When the shadow speaks again, it reaches out to run its inky fingers through her knotted hair. “Good girl. There’s a team player.” _Why?_ Even her thoughts are tiny and quiet like whispers against the roaring wind.

The shadow sighs, tipping the last of the bottle into her outstretched hand. “How do you catch a fish? With your hands? With a pole? No—with a worm. You are the worm, my dear.”

 _I’m the worm_. The pills slip from her fingers and she’s too tired to pick them up. Her head (which has been relaxing backward onto the lip of the tub) barely manages to tilt downward in time for her to vomit onto her lap. The pain in her stomach doesn’t abate, and neither does her rising nausea. Head feeling as if it weighs a thousand pounds, she gives up strength and lets it rest back, hoping she won’t be sick again.

Beside her, not-Tyler keeps up a steady stream of words that she has trouble following. He picks up her journal to flip through it, laughing at passages he finds funny. Her breaths feel wet; like she’s under water, like the tub is full and she’s slipping down into it. Darkness creeps into the edges of her vision and she’s afraid of what might be waiting there for her. Her eyes slip closed so that she won’t have to see.

“How do you chop down a tree? With your hands? No—by killing its sister.” The shadow pauses it's monologue, stroking at its chin. “You know, I’m not sure if that metaphor works. Let me—.”

A noise, from someplace indistinguishable, startling her from dozing off. Ashley isn’t sure where she is. Her eyes can’t move to see. What is she doing here? Something dark moves at her side and pill bottles rain down into her lap, rattling their death-rattles. Two red eyes lean down to peer into hers, and there is the painful sting of a flick to her forehead.

After that, there’s nothing at all, and the next time Ashley wakes, she’s in hell.


	19. Circle of Duns

 “No parking spaces,” Josh mutters to himself. He is hunched over in the passenger seat with his elbows planted on his knees, fingers buried to the knuckles in his hair. The words passing his lips are unconscious, without thought. He is _beyond_ thought. “Why aren’t there any fucking parking spaces?”

Tyler looks agonized in the driver’s seat, hands gripping the wheel like it’s _his_ sister they’re racing to the hospital to see. They’ve circled the parking lot half a dozen times, but every space is filled. _Why aren’t there more parking spaces? What kind of hospital runs out of parking spaces?_ Josh’s phone buzzes on his lap, and he nearly drops it on the floor of the car in his haste to answer it.

  **First floor. ICU Waiting Room.**

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Josh says. The car lurches to a stop, and when he looks up, he sees that they’re outside the emergency room doors. The car’s locks click open.

Tyler motions him out urgently. “Go Josh—just go. I’ll find a spot okay?”

Josh doesn’t need to be told twice. He throws open the car door and sprints into the emergency room, twisting sideways to make it through the painfully slow automated sliding doors. The man in scrubs behind the check-in counter immediately directs him down a hall, pressing a button to grant him access to the other wing of the hospital.

The ICU waiting room is a large, brightly lit room lined with chairs and end tables. Muted TVs flicker at each end, and in the far corner is a refrigerator and microwave, coffee pots lingering with half-empty, cooling brews. Occupying more chairs than any other family is the Duns. His mother and father, his brother and his grandmother have all pulled chairs to circle each other—all except for Abigail who is standing at the refrigerator playing with the automated ice machine.

His grandmother catches sight of him first, urgently touching his mother on the shoulder and nodding in his direction. They all turn to look at him, and he _knows_ that what happened at school doesn’t matter, not when his sister could be dying, but he didn’t know how fucking afraid he was that the opposite might be true until his mother meets him halfway across the waiting room with her arms outstretched. She’s short which makes it easy to bury his face in her hair and cry.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers through a thick throat.

“It doesn’t matter. Forget it. None of that matters. Okay?”

He nods. When was the last time his mother hugged him? Not nearly as long as it’s been since _he_ had hugged _her_. A hand touches his shoulder; he turns his head just enough to see his father’s strong countenance, lips thin with emotion under his mustache. After a long moment, Josh lets his mother go. Both wipe at their cheeks liberally, and it feels a little strange to be so emotional in a room with strangers waiting to hear news about their own families, but he imagines that this waiting room has seen plenty of tears and his won’t be the last.

They pull up a chair and make room for him in the circle, and it’s weird that this is the closest his family has been in months. When was the last time they had been so completely engrossed in each other and nothing else, not dinner, or phones, or television?

Why did it take something like _this_ to bring them together?

His grandmother passes cheap waiting-room tissues around the circle, and everybody takes one except for Jordan who is hunched over writing furiously on a slip of paper in his lap, shielded by his shoulders. A pile of clean, empty sheets sits messily at his feet. The sound of the ice machine comes on, and Josh glances over at Abigail who still hasn’t moved.

“She’s the one who found Ashley,” his father says under his breath. “They said they’re going to send a child psychologist to talk to her—they have some on staff—but no one has come yet.”

“Jesus,” Josh says. “Tell me. Tell me everything.”

Jordan is the one who speaks, eyebrows furrowed, refusing to look up from the paper in his lap. “Abbie and I came home from school. She went straight to the bathroom because she had to pee, and Ashley was in the tub. There were pills and water all over the floor. She’d thrown up—it smelled gross.”

“It’s my fault,” his mother says, wiping at her eyes. “I should have known. She called me—well, she hasn’t called me _momma_ since she was a little girl. I should have _known._ ”

“You couldn’t have known, Laura,” his grandmother says, the voice of reason. “She didn’t want you to.”

“I have a duty as a mother. I know when Jordan hasn’t done his homework. I—I can tell when Abbie has a fever just by looking at her eyes! How could I _not_ have known?” His mother seems bent nearly to her breaking point. Josh can do nothing but stare, a mixture of numbness and horror churning in his stomach. She stands and moves to the window, resting her hands on the pane and staring at the parking lot below.

“How did she—?” Josh isn’t sure that he wants to know, but he _has_ to know.

“Pills. There were several different medications found with A-Ashley, but we aren’t sure what she took before she passed out. Your pills were empty. Your father’s pills were empty. Other things were open and spilled or still half-full. There’s no way to tell,” his grandmother adds. “They pumped her stomach in the emergency room and gave her activated charcoal for anything they might have missed.”

“She woke up an hour ago,” his mother says to the window, breath fogging the glass. “The doctors said she was upset and they had to sedate her. Upset. Why?”

No one spoke. The relief Josh feels at hearing that Ashley is awake makes him so lightheaded that he thinks the doctors might need to bring a stretcher out for _him_. Something in the reflection of the window catches his mother’s eye and she turns. Her smile is gentle and sad as she moves past the circle deeper into the waiting room. Josh turns and is stunned to see Tyler standing there at the entrance of the waiting room looking just as frightened and unsure as Josh had only minutes ago.

“Tyler. Thank God. Thank you.” His mother envelopes Tyler in a hug oblivious to how he stands stiff as a board, eyes wide and staring past her at Josh as if pleading for assistance. Josh winces in sympathy (it’s obvious that Tyler isn’t a touchy-feely kind of dude), but when Tyler fights through his discomfort and lifts a solitary hand to pat awkwardly at his mother’s back, it hits Josh all at once.

His obsession with Tyler Joseph is more than just obsession.

He has more than just admiration for him.

There are _feelings_.

Josh is _fucked_.

“Is Ashley okay?” Tyler asks.

“She’s through the worst,” his mother answers. When she pulls away, she’s wiping at fresh tears. “Come sit with us. Bill, will you pull up a chair?”

And somehow, Tyler Joseph became one with the circle of Duns, taking the spot next to Josh. The older boy can’t help but feel like he’s entered an episode of the Twilight Zone. Had he imagined the tension back in Dean Whitlock’s office? How was it that Tyler had somehow become an honorary family member in just a few hours, earning a seat among them?

He keeps the questions to himself because he doesn’t _care_. It’s Tyler. Tyler is here with him. The smile he gives the older boy is sad and soft. “I found a place to park,” he whispers. “Do you want me to leave? I should leave, shouldn’t? I don’t want to, like, intrude—“

“No!” Josh pauses and frowns. “Not unless you want to, I mean. I’m sure this is like, really awkward.”

“Dude. Don’t even think about that. We have more important things to think about. What the heck happened?”

They go back around the circle. Abigail has drifted into their midst, sitting on the floor by their mother’s chair and leaning her head against their mother’s leg. Her eyes are red and puffy, vacant. Their mother reaches down tentatively to run her fingers through the girl’s hair, but Abigail makes no response.

“She left a note,” his grandmother says.

“Oh, right. Yes.” His mother sniffs, reaching for a notebook on the end table that rests between her and his father. Josh recognizes it as the notebook Ashley is always writing her poetry in. There is an echo in his mind: Ashley telling him that she’d written new poems and him brushing her off. His throat clenches. He had _brushed her off_.

There is a spot in the journal marked by an insurance form. Money—that’s one thing Josh can’t think about. Every thought is filled with Ashley: the shy curve of her smile, her girly handwriting, her chipped nail polish, all the guys Josh hasn’t had the chance to intimidate away from her yet. All the opportunities he has missed and might miss in the future if something were to happen to her. Opening to the marked page, he begins to read.

“It’s hard to understand her handwriting sometimes, and other times it doesn’t make any sense,” his mother chimes in. “She was—delirious, I think.”

**To mom, dad, Josh, Jordan, and Abbie**

**Hopefully I am gone. This was not a 'last resort'. It was a choice. I am not sad. I did what I had to do to make sure that you guys would be okay. I love you guys SO MUCh. This is not your fault and there is nothing that you could have done to stop me. I am sorry that I couldnot get a job like Josh. I am sorry that I could not be happy or funny like jordan and abbie. I am sure that it wasn’t easy to raise a daugter like me or to have me as a sister. this is all that I cn do to help. DON’T BE SAD FOR ME. DON’T SPEND MONEY ON A FUNNERAL.**

**I am sorry if there is a mess to clean up**

**all my love. ashley.**

But beneath her name and her love is a final sentence in her messy handwriting, one that makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end and the blood drain from his head so quickly that the room spins. Josh reaches out and clenches his fist in Tyler’s hoodie, pulling the other boy close. Tyler’s eyes are wide and alarmed, following Josh’s pointed finger to the last words of Ashley’s letter.

**Blurryface was here :)**

He’s close enough to hear Tyler’s breath hitch. They meet eyes wearing twin expressions of disbelief.

“There’s no way,” Josh breathes.

“There’s no way she could _know_ ,” Tyler adds.

“Laura?” Someone breaks into their circle. All eyes turn to the woman dressed in khakis and a navy blouse. There is a nametag pinned just above her breast, and when she smiles, the lines around her eyes wax like waves along the shore. “I’m Leanne. I’m here to talk to Abbie.”

Abigail glances up, blinking like she doesn’t know where she is. His mother helps her stand and the three women disappear together out of the waiting room. Josh’s heart clenches at Abigail’s shuffling gait. She’s only a kid.

So is Ashley.

His father clears his throat. While a quietly affectionate husband and father, he’s never been one for heartfelt speeches or open displays of emotion. “You kids should know. Money—money doesn’t matter. It comes and it goes. Sometimes it’s there, and sometimes it’s not, but we always get by. You kids—you are irreplaceable.”

Jordan sniffs, but his head is still downturned, hand moving furiously across the page in his lap. 

Josh says nothing; throat clenched tight. Why did those words have such an effect on him? He looks down at the notebook in his lap so that he won’t have to look at anyone and no one will see his misty eyes.

“Josh, what does that mean?” Tyler murmurs from beside him, leaning in close enough that Josh can smell his shampoo. “That thing she wrote. Is that really her handwriting?”

Josh flips briefly through the other pages of the notebook. The last sentence is crooked, sloppy, but the curl of the Y’s and the jaunt of the smiley face is all Ashley. There’s no mistaking it for anyone else. And really, what was the other option? Blurryface stepping out of their dreams and autographing his sister’s suicide note?

Josh’s mother isn’t back yet when a nurse comes out to speak with them and update them on his sister’s condition. Ashley is stable enough that the intensive care unit isn’t required anymore. They’re moving her up to the third floor where the other psychiatric patients reside. There is a case worker from the hospital that will come in the morning to discuss what happens next—mandatory therapy just being one of those things—and it will take some time to see if there are any lasting effects from Ashley’s prescription abuse.

“I don’t know how much they explained to you in the emergency room. The benzos weren’t the problem,” the nurse explains. “But the acetaminophen in the hydrocodone can be extremely dangerous. We gave her NAC, and we’re keeping an eye on her liver, but as it is, Ashley is extremely lucky. From what the paramedics explained, she’d already vomited on the scene which likely did her a lot of good, but the time between ingestion and her treatment was minimal, which is excellent.”

“If more time had passed, would she have died?” Josh asks because he likes to have answers with which to torture himself late at night.

“Over time, possibly, but acetaminophen overdose can be slow. It causes damage that increases exponentially with time and the longer the wait, the more lasting the damage. While Ashley would have lived for hours, possibly even days after this ingestion, her liver would have been severely and potentially permanently compromised.

“I came to let you know that she’s calmed down and we’re going to move her up to the third floor soon before we give her some medication to help her rest. If you’d like to see her before then, I can take you back. ICU only allows for two visitors at a time.”

Jordan stands from his seat. He’d previously been so still that Josh wasn’t even sure if he was listening. His eyes are raw and watery, and he clenches the paper he’s been writing on between his hands like a boy about to give the most important speech of his life.

“She’s awake?” Jordan asks.

“Awake, but sleepy.”

He sniffs and wipes at one of his eyes with his palm. “Good. I’ve got—I’ve got some jokes, and I think these are really good ones. I just want to make her smile.”

The nurse smiles and motions a welcoming arm for Jordan and their father to follow after her. When they disappear, it is just Josh, Tyler, and Josh’s grandmother remaining. Josh’s grandmother takes one look at the two boys whose chairs have gravitated together, heads ducking down towards each other, and says she’s going to the vending machine down the hall.

“I’m freaked,” Tyler whispers as soon as she’s gone. “There’s no way she could know about Blurryface. Not unless—you _told_ her?”

“No way! How could I tell any of this without sounding like a nutcase?”

“Then she found your journal. That has to be it.”

Josh snorts. “You don’t know Ashley. She respects the sanctity of journals like it’s one of the Ten Commandments. It would have been like Fort Knox to her; there’s no way she would have opened it. She—she’s really thoughtful about what other people would want.”

There’s only one other option, and Josh feels crazy just _thinking_ it. Blurryface has visited Ashley. When he turns the idea over in his mind, it isn’t as crazy as he thought. He fucking shares dreams with another human being—who is to decide where the line is drawn? This connection he has with Tyler might not be as exclusive as they thought. It’s possible that Ashley could dream with them, and the thought horrifies him.

“What if she’s dreaming about Blurryface _right now_? What if Blurry is doing bad things to her?” The thought is like activating a detonator to a bomb in his mind. Josh’s head spins. His chest clenches. He’s like a wind-up toy wound past its limits.

“Josh,” Tyler turns his chair so that his entire focus is on the older boy, and as a result, Tyler is all Josh can see: tired, worried brown eyes and hair that could use a comb and a hoodie too large for his skinny frame. “You’re going to have a panic attack. Focus on your breathing. Whatever is going on with Ashley is going to be alright. The doctors are taking care of her, and we’ll take care of her too. Just breathe.”

 Tyler keeps up his soothing pep talk. With time, Josh’s heart starts to slow and breaths even out their jagged edge, but his chest still feels compressed like the weight of all his problems has begun to crush down on his breastbone. “They’re going to sedate her. She’ll fall asleep and then what? How can I protect her?”

 “Simple,” Tyler mutters. He clasps his hands together in front of himself, pressing white marks into his skin, echoes of his touch. When he looks up, he has the expression of a man being given a life sentence, being cursed with a terminal illness. “We go in after her.”

#

By the time his grandmother returns, it’s clear that she went to the vending machine and then took a walk outside. Raindrops litter her clothes. Josh and Tyler move their chairs back to a respectable distance, giving each other glances now and then as if to make sure the other is still there.

“I called your grandfather,” she explains as she settles into her chair opening the tiny bag of cashews, half-eaten. “Your parents asked me to stay at your house tonight.”

“Do you think it will be okay if Josh comes home with me?” Tyler asks, voice small.

“After what you’ve done for the family today, I’m sure that Laura and Bill would give you anything.”

“What has he done for the family?” Josh asks. “Given me a ride?” 

Tyler turns red, shrugging. His grandmother explains.

“No one could find you, and the doctors weren’t sure if Ashley was going to make it when she first arrived with how low her blood pressure was. Your parents didn’t want to leave in case they needed to make a decision about her care or (God forbid) if they needed to say goodbye. Tyler volunteered to drive all over town looking for you.” 

“Why?” Josh asks.

Tyler shrugs again. “Your sister was sick. It was the right thing to do.”

Josh’s father and brother return. Jordan doesn’t have the list of jokes anymore. They both seem to be in marginally better spirits after having seen Ashley. The fear has been bled away until nothing but exhaustion and uncertainty remain, but anything is better than fear. Fear is the worst.

“Mr. Dun,” Tyler says. “Do you mind if I go with Josh to see Ashley?” 

“Do you know Ashley well?” He asks.

“He’ll be there for _me_ , dad,” Josh says. “In case I—get upset.”

Josh doesn’t even try to fool himself into thinking that he’s using his anxiety as a bargaining chip: what he said is just plain _true_. He’s only been close with Tyler for a matter of weeks, but the younger boy has seen many of his worst moments. Somehow, he’s still here, standing next to him with his hands shoved deep into the front pocket of his hoodie. Josh’s dad gives in.

 “Alright, but you need to be quick. She was in and out falling asleep.”

Josh and Tyler walk down the dimly lit hallway. To get into the ICU, they have to pick up a telephone and call a nurse at the desk to ask for the doors to open. Once inside, they immediately don masks that hook around their ears and cover their mouths and noses.

“Better safe than sorry,” the nurse says. “We have some very sick patients here.”

Ashley has a room to herself. 1211. Josh stares at the doorplate listing her room number and runs his finger over the braille underneath it. He was in such a rush to get to the hospital, but now he isn’t sure if he can face his sister. He’s afraid of what he might see, or what he might say, or what _she_ might say. The longer he thinks, the tighter the cords in his chest are drawn, like a guitar being tuned to its limits.

“Josh,” Tyler’s hand hovers over his shoulder, unsure, then comes down gently to pat at his shirt gracelessly. “Josh, it’s just Ashley. Come on.”

Inside, Ashley is asleep, head cushioned by a plush pillow, mouth open gently. Jordan’s list of jokes is clutched to her chest with one hand like she’s trying to press it right through and wrap it around her heart. Her hair is so dark compared to the pillowcase, the circles under her eyes like bruises on her pale skin. There are machines that Josh can’t begin to name, bags of saline and IV’s hooked right into her tiny arm. It’s almost too much; he wants to run. But if Ashley can’t run, then neither can he.

Josh gets all the way to her bedside before she hears him coming over the beep and whir of the machines. Her eyes crack open, dark and sad. When she sees him, her hand tightens on the list of jokes, crinkling it. She closes her eyes again tight like she can’t even stand to look at him, lips pressed together and trembling. He doesn’t know how tears can escape since she’s squeezing her eyes shut so tightly. They do anyway.

Josh clumsily puts a hand on her own, being careful to avoid the IV. That seems like the thing people do in movies. Clearly, he’s done something right because Ashley gently turns her hand over as best as she can to clasp palms with him tightly.

“Are you mad at me?” She cries.

“No,” he says, wiping at his eyes while she isn’t looking. “Nobody’s mad at you.” 

“Promise?” Her eyes crack open.

“Duh. I’m sorry that—that I wasn’t—that you couldn’t talk to me—”

She shakes her head, almost dislodging the line that feeds oxygen into her nostrils. “Not your fault.”

“Totally my fault. I’m just glad you’re okay.”

She cries harder. “I’m not okay, though. I’m not okay at _all_. I couldn’t even kill myself right. Now there are going to be all of these hospital bills—this is, this is the worst thing that could have happened.”

Josh winces. God, can’t he say anything right? Hearing Ashley say those things _hurts_ , hurts to hear that her worst-case scenario was surviving. “Ashley—don’t say that. Nobody cares about the money—”

 There comes a noise from the corner of the room; they both turn their heads to see Tyler standing there awkwardly, one arm curled up and backward to rub the back of his neck. He’s the picture of discomfort. When he sees them looking, he waves to Ashley weakly.

Ashley looks equal parts mortified and furious, like she’s fallen asleep and awoken into a nightmare. “What’s he doing here?”

“I wanted to talk to you,” Tyler asks. “If that’s okay.”

“I mean—I, I guess—I just—?”

“Can I—can you leave, Josh?” Tyler asks. “If you’d prefer to have him here Ashley, I totally get that. He can stay, but—”

“It’s fine,” Ashley says. Her face is strangely red, and Josh isn’t sure if it’s all from her crying. Her free hand drifts up to run through her hair anxiously like she’s trying to comb the tangles free. “Josh? Can you go for a minute?”

 _This_ wasn’t part of the plan. What the heck could Tyler freaking Joseph have to say to _his_ sister? Alone? Josh stands out in the hallway, repressing his brotherly urges that want him to keep Tyler and Ashley far, far apart. He presses his ear against the door to try to listen, but the thick oak is meant to obscure sounds and nothing comes through, not even the murmur of voices. They’re there alone together for nearly six full minutes before Tyler comes out, hands shoved deep in his pockets. He clears his throat and opens the door wide to let Josh in.

Ashley looks the same as before he left (really, what had Josh expected Tyler to do? Assault her or something?), but she is quieter. Thoughtful. Josh leans over the bed to hug her, smelling her hair. It doesn’t smell like the shampoo she and their mother use: just antiseptic like the hospital.

“We’re going to make everything okay,” Josh says, trying to paraphrase what Tyler said in the waiting room that gave him such peace. He’s probably messing it up nice and proper, but at least he's trying, right? “We’ll do it together. Okay?”

“Okay,” she whispers back, tangling her fingers in his shirt.

Next is Tyler. For a moment, Josh thinks that he’s going to lean down to hug her too. He looks like he might, but then just smiles and holds out a hand. They bump knuckles, exchanging a secret, knowing glances. _Seriously_ , what’s that about? Whatever it is, Josh doesn’t like it. It gives him a feeling in his chest like heartburn, like when he uses too much fire sauce from Taco Bell. It makes him irritated as if there are bugs under his skin.

“I think I had a dream about you,” Ashley whispers to Tyler, shivering. “Is that weird?”

Tyler smiles kindly. “Totally. I’ll see you soon Ashley.”

“’kay.”

They leave the room, Tyler carefully closing the door behind them. In the hallway, they stare at each other. Josh crosses his arms feeling more like a mother hen than a threatening older brother.

“What?” Tyler asks.

“What do you mean, ' _what'?_ Are you hitting on my sister after she just tried to kill herself?”

Tyler’s eyes grow wide, mouth slack with disbelief. “ _No way_. Look—just, no. Come on, we need to get back to my place so we can talk.”

“No—I want to know. What’d you say to her in there?”

“I’m going to tell you. Tonight, I’ll tell you everything. I just don’t want to do it here. It’s private, some stuff that I’ve never told anybody before—well, not until Ashley. And you. Later?” Tyler looks very vulnerable by the time he finishes talking, the corners of his full lips downturned, eyebrows low and furrowed. It makes the chords in Josh’s chest tighten and loosen rhythmically like it’s a beating heart. There’s no way that Josh can push the issue now—not when Tyler’s giving him a look of such fragile fear.

“Fine. Your house. Let’s go.”

Back in the waiting room, all who remain are Josh’s parents. The chairs have been moved back to their spots. Josh’s parents have their heads ducked together, whispering, clasping each other’s hands. Throughout the room, cheap pillows and blankets have been brought out and distributed to those family members who plan to be in the ICU waiting room all night.

“Your grandmother took your siblings home,” his mother says when she sees them coming. “She said that you’re staying with Tyler tonight?” 

“If that’s okay,” Josh says.

“Of course. I don’t know how to thank you enough, Tyler.” His mother looks weepy again—like she’s liable to start crying any moment. The uncomfortable look on Tyler’s face would have Josh stifling laughter if he didn’t feel so empty. His heart feels hollowed, missing, like after his last dream with Tyler when Blurryface cut it out and claimed it as his own.

“It’s no problem,” Tyler says. His sincerity is worn plainly on his face and in the tone of his voice. “Really. Don’t mention it.”

 Josh exchanges hugs with his parents. They promise to call him during the night should anything about Ashley’s status change, and in the morning he’ll be back at the hospital to sit with them and visit her.

Outside, whatever rain might have been falling has stopped. The pavement is only damp, the air misty. There’s a chill that makes him shiver in his school uniform as he follows Tyler blindly towards wherever he’s parked—which turns out to be in front of somebody’s _house_ across the street from the hospital. On the windshield is a slip of paper going soggy.

Tyler crumples the ticket wetly and throws it into the backseat. “Who fricking cares.”

In the car, Tyler immediately cranks the heat, directing all of the vents at Josh who is shivering, fingers tucked under his thighs to keep them warm. There is no conversation and neither makes any move to turn on the radio—Josh isn’t even sure if the radio _works_ in Tyler’s car, considering he’s never heard it on and playing. The drive across town is through general evening traffic, but Josh’s mind is far away, cycling through the events of the day. School. Teague. Ashley. Tyler.

_Blurryface._

They stop at Josh’s house first so he can grab general slumber supplies.

“Are you sure your mom is going to be okay with me staying the night?” Josh asks. In his mind, there is an image of the angry Mrs. Joseph: a furious mother protecting her son from a perceived homicidal maniac.

“Mom’s totally cool with it. I explained everything to them after you—uh—walked out.”

“I can’t wait to hear it,” Josh mutters, stepping out of the car and shutting the door behind him. The house is still dark and empty. He isn’t sure where his grandmother is, but if his siblings’ stomachs feel anything like his own, then he imagines that they’re grabbing a late dinner. Josh thinks about foraging for food but changes his mind. He doesn’t want to keep Tyler waiting.

Tyler— whose house he is going to spend the night at like they’re thirteen year old girls having a sleepover. His stomach is in knots at the thought.

He turns the light on in the bathroom to grab his toothbrush and freezes.

It’s a mess of pill bottles and shattered glass, a rancid scent in the air. Josh didn’t even think of the fact that he was coming back to the house where his sister tried to kill herself, didn’t think of what physical mess might remain. It’s a surreal feeling—like he’s on a movie set; like it can’t be real. Only, it is. If he doesn’t clean it up, who will? Jordan and Abbie? His grandmother? Feeling like he might get sick, he fishes his phone out of his pocket and texts Tyler in the car.

**i have to clean something up. i’ll be out asap**

It’s a miserable job. The floor is still wet, which makes it difficult to sweep up the glass. He hears the sound of the front door opening—he’s too late. Abigail and Jordan are home and now they’ll see it all over again and what if Abbie has fucking PTSD or something? That could seriously screw up a person’s head, couldn’t it? She’s just a _kid_.

But it’s Tyler. He says nothing, just kneels in the water and glass to hold the dustpan while Josh sweeps up the mess. Tyler catches his incredulous stare and just smiles sadly, nodding. Josh nods back, throat tight, thankful that words aren’t necessary because _there are none._

#

By the time they make it to Tyler’s house, it is ten-thirty at night. There is still a light on in the downstairs window: a beacon that both comforts and frightens him. He’s exhausted—physically and emotionally—and the idea of facing an angry Mr. and Mrs. Joseph has him fragile like he’s made of glass and filled with spider-web cracks liable to shatter at any moment.

As soon as the front door opens and the smell of cooking broth and chicken reaches him, his stomach gives its fiercest growl yet. The house is quiet except for the gentle sounds of movement in the kitchen, and Tyler leads the way with comfort, Josh following along with dread. Mrs. Joseph is awake. She’s changed from the professional clothes he saw her in earlier that day and is casual and wearing glasses. She peers over them to assess the two boys entering her kitchen and Josh can’t even _look_ at her; he’s so afraid and ashamed.

“Look at you, mom. Back at it with the chicken noodle soup,” Tyler says, wrapping her up in a hug.

“It’s just leftovers; I hope that’s okay.” Josh lingers awkwardly in the doorway examining his shoes because wow they’ve never looked so interesting before. He can _feel_ their attention shift from each other onto him and his ears burn. “Hi, Joshua. I hope your sister is alright.”

“Thank you,” Josh says as sincerely as he can. “She’s going to be okay.”

“That’s good to hear.” She starts to ladle steaming soup into two bowls, and Josh seriously hopes that one of those is for him. “If there’s anything that you or your family need, please let Tyler know.”

“Thank you,” Josh says again, feeling like a skipping record. “Really. I—uh—appreciate it.”

She smiles and it’s warm even if it’s a little reserved. “Alright, boys. Out of my kitchen. Don’t wake your siblings Tyler Joseph, so help me.”

“No way!” Tyler says, kissing her cheek. Walking up the stairs is a little precarious with Josh’s bag and a piping hot bowl of soup, especially because he forgot to take off his fricking shoes downstairs and he feels like he’s tracking his dirt all over the Josephs' nice carpet.

Tyler’s room isn’t as clean as it was the last time Josh saw it. Now, it looks lived in. There’s a pile of clothes at the end of the bed that Tyler hastily shoves underneath it. On the writing desk is the ukulele, gleaming in the lamplight, resting on top of open books that Josh can’t scrutinize from a distance.

Tyler chooses to sit on his bed, back pressed against his wall, cradling his soup in his lap. He must be able to sense Josh’s uncertainty (or maybe Josh’s face is just that exposed) because he nods his head at the foot of the bed. Hoping that his face isn’t as red as it feels, Josh takes the place next to Tyler.

“You told your mom about my sister?” Josh asks in between spoonfuls of chicken and noodles and vegetables.

“Yeah. Well, I had to tell them so that they’d understand why I needed to go and find you and why I wanted you to come back here.”

Josh is quiet, frowning. He doesn’t like the thought of the Josephs knowing his family’s personal business. What happened with Ashley isn’t gossip; the thought that people at school might find out nearly makes him choke on his soup. That’s the last thing he wants for her. Maybe it’s selfish, but it’s the last thing that he wants for _himself_.

“She understands,” Tyler says quietly. He swallows, a clicking sound in the silence of the room. 

Tyler locks eyes with Josh.

“ _I_ understand. I think I’m ready to tell you about Blurry—about me.”


	20. Breaking Points

Tyler Joseph is eight years old the first time that he hurts himself.

It’s a movie day in class. Movie days are the _worst_ ever since that time his class watched the film about how people are tearing down all the Rainforests. Tyler had cried and everyone had made fun of him—but it wasn’t his fault. Why was nobody _else_ crying? He thought about all of the animals without their homes, little families of exotic creatures whose lives were torn apart for money and it made him so _sad_.

Now whenever there is a movie, the other kids tease him. They go to the teacher’s desk to ask for tissues, wad them up, and leave them on Tyler’s desk. _In case you cry again!_ they say, laughing like it’s a real funny joke, only Tyler doesn’t think it’s funny at all. When he tells the teacher, she doesn’t seem concerned. _Don’t tattle, Tyler_ , she says. _Nobody likes a tattle._

Tyler’s learning to keep his mouth shut about things, like the boys who always aim for his face during dodgeball and about the girl next to him who cranes her neck to copy off of his work during tests. Nobody cares. Now about him.

The movie day at school is celebrating the last day of the semester before winter break. There’s no homework and no more lesson plans, so everybody’s parents made snacks their kids could bring in to share. Tyler is eating one of the brownies his mother sent him with and drinking a can of orange soda, smiling when the bubbles tickle his lip. The movie that they’re watching actually _is_ kind of sad: something about a boy whose parents are mean to him, and he gets sucked into a board game for years and when he comes back, most of his family is dead. When it gets too sad, Tyler stares down into his soda and tries to tell himself happy stories to distract himself. He can’t think of many, so he tells himself the same ones over and over again.

The girl in the desk next to him with the extra long neck elbows the boy next to her. “Tyler’s gonna _cry_ again,” she whispers loud enough for him to hear.

His face goes red. He mutters: “Am not.”

“Are too.”

“I’m not gonna cry.” But even as he says it, he feels his eyes filling with tears. He just wants to be left alone. He wants to have the desk in the corner where the kids who are bad and won’t stop talking during class have to go and sit at to be alone. It sounds perfect, even if he hasn’t done anything wrong, but his teacher won't let him sit there. Tyler runs his thumb along the sharp edge of the opening of the aluminum can, swishing the lukewarm soda inside to distract himself.

The kids whisper more under their breath, laughing every so often, but Tyler tries to block them out. His mother says that he shouldn’t pay attention to bullies and that a bully will get tired of picking on you if you ignore them. It’s just so _hard_ , and in the meantime it hurts so _much_. In time, they do get bored and turn back to the movie, but Tyler can’t even let himself look up at it.

He presses his thumb into the sharp aluminum until it aches, pulls it away to watch the mark on his skin fade. He does it again harder and it takes longer for the mark to fade. His mind is a million miles away wondering thoughts he’s too young to wonder: why he is the way he is, why none of the other kids cry or get picked on the way he does, why when kids pass out invitations to their birthday parties they always skip him over (and why that time he passed out his own invitations, nobody showed up the party), why the teacher overlooks his raised hand during class or why she sighs when she sees him coming up to her desk for help. Sometimes, he wishes that he could take all of the bad parts of himself and pluck them away to put them in a box on a shelf someplace where it can get nice and dusty.

Tyler is so lost in thought that he doesn’t notice right away when the aluminum breaks his skin. There is a sharp pain that makes him recoil. The pad of his thumb is split and he’s oozing blood into his orange soda. The sight makes him anxious, heart fluttering in his chest like a hummingbird’s wings—he’s done something very wrong. He’s going to be in so much trouble.

“Tyler’s bleeding!” Someone shrieks in his ear. He looks up at the girl with the giraffe neck, horrified, hand growing slick, feeling like all of the blood has drained from his face down to his thumb.

There is a flurry of activity: kids abandoning their desks and shoving each other to get a closer look, the teacher’s tall form slipping through and tenderly grabbing his wrist to hold it up and examine his thumb. She grabs the wad of un-used tissues deposited on his desk by the other students and presses it against the wounded digit.

“Are you okay, Tyler?” She asks.

“Wow,” a kid whispers.

“Does it hurt?” Someone asks.

“What happened?”

Tyler’s head spins a little, mouth opening and closing. Is he not in trouble?

“It—it doesn’t hurt much,” he says tentatively.

“ _Cool._ ”

“Okay everybody—back to your seats. Do I have any volunteers to take Tyler to the nurse?”

Tyler’s head drops. Nobody is going to want to walk with him. He’ll pass out halfway to the nurse’s and nobody will find him for _hours_ probably! But to his surprise, voices call out all over the room, volunteers trying to shout over each other to be heard and chosen. It’s like he’s in a dream.

The boy who walks with him is one of the duo who usually pelts his face with blunt objects during gym class, but now he’s escorting Tyler like he’s a bodyguard, asking every so often for Tyler to pull the tissues away and show his wound. Tyler does so gladly. At the nurse’s office, the boy sits with him in the plastic chair while the older woman cleans and bandages his thumb, making small talk. The kid doesn’t have to wait, but he does anyway, and for the first time, Tyler feels comradeship. He feels what it is like to have someone in his presence who wants to be there —who enjoys to be there.

And whenever the other boy laughs (sometimes even at something that _Tyler_ has said!), Tyler doesn’t even feel the pain in his thumb at all.

#

It wasn’t a recipe for popularity, but it seemed to get the kids off his back. He comes back from winter break with a scar on his thumb and everybody makes impressed noises when he shows them.

In middle school, he grows a few more inches and joins the basketball team. He’s actually pretty good. His parents are so impressed (and probably relieved that he’s showing interest in school activities and that the old, dark days of his grade school years are behind him) that they have a concrete basketball court poured into the backyard. Tyler spends all of his free time out back practicing and won’t let himself rest until he makes one hundred baskets every night.

Because being on the basketball team? That _is_ a recipe for success. Nothing can be easy for Tyler though, and with his new interest in basketball comes more interests. He really likes the poems they read in class: ones about quiet, snowy woods and ones about roses growing up from concrete. There’s something about the power of words collected in stanzas that moves him in ways that he’s never been moved before.

When he’s invited to Chelsey Zeigler’s thirteenth birthday party, he writes her a poem instead of buying her a present. When he gives it to her, she stares blankly from the piece of paper to his empty hands. _Is this all you got me?_ she asks, and he shoves his hands into the pockets of his shorts, feeling stupid.

The birthday festivities including swimming in Chelsey’s pool (underground and _heated_ , so sick), pizza and cokes that her parents pay for, and games.

Spin the Bottle.

The dozen or so kids who came to Chelsey’s party gather in the guest house where all of the girls plan to sleep later that night when the boys have left. Tyler feels uncomfortable joining in the circle, but he can’t very well just _leave_ , can he? All the kids would think he was a coward or something.

It doesn’t take a genius to know that something’s weird about Tyler when it comes to sex. Most of his friends talk about it often enough, or about the girls they’ve kissed or which _base_ they’ve made it to. Tyler listens to their stories and just feels uncomfortable. Why would he want to put his tongue in someone else’s mouth? Why would he want to put his mouth on someone’s sex or have someone do the same to him? When he tries to imagine it happening in real life with some of the girls and boys he knows, it’s downright distasteful.

It’s foreign.

Tyler _feels_ foreign, but he doesn’t want anyone to know, because being foreign is _not_ part of the recipe for success or popularity. Instead, he sits quietly in the circle, sweating, picking at a painful hangnail. The pain keeps him grounded, distracted. He pulls and pulls until blood wells up and drips over and then someone is calling his name because the bottle has landed on _him_.

He doesn’t even want to look up. The girl he’s supposed to kiss is staring at him—everyone is.

Their gazes weigh on him, holding him in place.

“Come on Tyler,” someone says.

“I don’t want to,” he says without thinking. The girl looks _hurt_ , and he feels like a fricking idiot for opening his big mouth. “No, it’s not you—”

“What did I tell you?” Chelsey says to the rest of the group. “Tyler’s gay.”

“ _What?_ ”

“Come on. It’s not a _bad_ thing, I guess. Really, though? You write poems, you sing in chorus, you don’t want to kiss Allie. Two plus two equals four, Ty.” “I’m not gay,” Tyler says.

“Right,” Chelsey says, rolling her eyes. “Sure. Well, why don’t you just sit out?”

“Why?” Tyler asks, standing jerkily. “I’ve got a better idea. I’m going home.”

“Good,” a boy mutters from across the circle. “No offense Tyler but I don’t really want to play

Spin the Bottle with a faggot.”

“Fuck you,” Tyler says coolly, the first time he’s ever used such language to one of his peers. He tugs his shorts on over his damp swim trunks and gets the heck out of there, seeing red.

Tyler doesn’t like guys.

Tyler doesn’t like girls.

Most of all, Tyler doesn’t like people making assumptions about his sexuality. It’s something that not even he understands, and if it’s okay for them to not be sure what they want to be when they grow up, why isn’t it okay that he doesn’t quite know what he is _right now?_

But it’s like his feet won’t let him walk away from the guest house. He paces outside for a full minute feeling like a piece of iron caught between two competing magnets. Heart thumping, he goes back inside. All of the kids turn to the door and stare at him, afraid, like they expect him to _lose it_ or something.

“Can I talk to Allie outside?”

“I guess,” she mutters. They stand outside in the muggy Midwestern heat. She crosses her arms over her mostly-flat chest and shifts from foot to foot. She’s not the prettiest girl he goes to school with, but Tyler knows that she’s one of the kindest. He overheard her saying that she carries around extra pencils just in case someone needs one. Kindness is like, more beautiful than anything—and he _hurt_ her.

“I’m sorry about how I reacted in there,” he says.

Her face goes red. She shrugs. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” he insists. “I was like, really rude. That was wrong.”

“Okay.” Silence.

“Are you really gay?” Her face gets redder when she asks, obscuring the sprinkling of freckles over her nose. “I mean—I don’t care if you are or anything.” “I’m not,” Tyler says.

Her shoulders sag with relief. The smile she gives makes him nauseous and he realizes that maybe she isn’t as kind as he thought. “ _Oh._ Good. So—are you going to kiss me or what?”

“Huh?”

“I mean—isn't that why you came back? Why’d you get me outside alone for, anyway?” She suddenly looks unsure, squinting at him as if to see if he _really_ isn’t gay. The pressure is tangible, a force from the inside that sucks his eyeballs inward and nearly makes him swallow his tongue.

What can he do? Refuse to kiss her?

He can’t. Numbly, he leans forward and cups her cheek (that’s what they do in the movies, though it feels awkward in real life) and presses his lips to hers. It’s uncomfortable to be so close to her personal space—to have her so close to his. He can feel her breath mingling with his own. Her lips are warm, chapped. She moves them in some strange dance and he tries to keep up, feeling like he’s going to be sick, feeling like he’s betraying himself.

Feeling like a fucking sell-out for doing this just to get her and everyone else off of his back. He draws the line when she parts her mouth like she’s trying to steal the breath from his lungs. Pulling away, he puts a hand over his mouth as if to physically ward her away.

“Thanks,” he mutters because that seems polite.

“Anytime,” she breathes.

He turns and walks away jerkily. His heart is pounding in his chest, sweat dripping down into his eyes. The sun has gone down and it should be cooler now, but the heat seems to come from somewhere inside of him, burning him up. The whole way home, his vision swims in and out until he can only focus on the bright haven the streetlights offer in the darkness. When he arrives at his house, his heart is pounding so swiftly that his chest aches and he is in the middle of the first panic attack he’s ever had.

Unsure what is happening to him, he sits out back on the basketball court, crying and riding it out on his own. Contrary to how he feels, he doesn’t die. It’s very late when he finally goes inside, arms and legs riddled with mosquito bites. He goes straight to his bedroom and finds his biology book rifling through it. The chapter on reproduction has the term that resonated with his bones when he’d heard it in class at the beginning of the year, and he wants to read it again.

Tyler runs his finger over the passage while he reads. Biology of Human Sexuality. It’s a blurb— the smallest blurb, a blurb of a blurb, really—about human sexuality. There is heterosexuality and homosexuality which everybody knows about, but there are other terms there that aren’t so cut and dry. Bisexuality—and then the one that strikes a chord: asexuality. It has the least information offered, just the barest definition.

While it resonates, it offers no comfort. Tyler closes the book and pushes it away from him, vowing to never revisit that chapter again.

#

High school is fundamentally different from his other school years. He’s on the basketball team and he’s _good_. Starting ensures that people like him, and taking girls to every homecoming dance (“Just friends, right?”) ensures that no one squints too hard at his sexuality. When someone asks why he doesn’t have a girlfriend, he just shrugs. _Playing the field, I guess_ , he lies. It makes him sick to use girls as pawns. It makes him sick to use himself as a pawn. It’s like he’s a product, selling himself cheap just to keep himself in stock.

He’s doing more of that lately: selling out. Tyler finds himself creating a persona that he becomes during the day. Like a mask he puts on when he steps foot on school property, he transforms himself into someone new: Tyler Joseph, basketball star, popular, decent grades, average in every other way. The only times he allows himself to pick up a pencil and write are late nights where the words build up in his brain like the growing pressure along fault lines before an earthquake. Tyler doesn’t let himself take any writing classes, and the closest he gets to the poetry club is when he passes by on his way to basketball practice.

Tyler takes up self-harm as a pastime. It requires a certain creativity, he thinks. Gusto, definitely. Sometimes he cracks his knuckles on his wooden bed frame until they bruise. He goes outside without sunscreen on in the hot sun so his skin burns and he can press and scratch his fingers at the tender skin. He holds his hands over the scented candles his mother burns until the pain is so bad that he can’t stand it.

Cutting is his favorite. There are so many tools that can be used: knives from the kitchen and products from the bathroom, plastic razors broken open when no one else is home to hear the noise. Tyler leaves marks on every part of himself that can be reached and covered, runs his fingers over the raised skin and scabs when he’s trying to fall asleep at night.

Though Tyler has been hurting himself for years (and the first time was _great_ , life changing, even), his motives have changed. There is no real pleasure in it—how can there be, in something that causes his own pain? However, there is peace. Tyler is a very Bad Person, and he can’t understand why everyone seems to like him. He craves their kindness but feels undeserving of it. The self-harm is his way to punish himself for his wrongs and weaknesses: a way to get even at himself even when no one else will.

Like most alter egos, his becomes harder and harder to maintain. Tyler counts on being able to hang up his mask every night when he comes home from school, but that’s ruined when his mother finds his book of poems while tidying his room and makes a joke about it over dinner. Part of him knows that she’s only jesting, light-hearted teasing. Another part of him, a voice in the back of his head that has been growing in volume ever since he was a little boy, whispers that maybe they’d prefer if he _didn’t_ take his mask off at the end of the day.

So he tries not to. There is no more writing in his bedroom, only basketball in the evenings (he can make nearly three hundred baskets every single night, now). He throws himself into being a better brother and a better son: endless chores and helping his siblings with their homework and slaving over those last few subjects he can’t ever seem to get A’s in. Slowly, he only takes his mask off at night when he’s alone in his bed, and after a while he can’t even trust that. He starts to wear it all the time: alone in his room, when he showers, while watching television.

With how often he becomes his alternate persona, it should get easier, but the opposite is true. The pressure that builds on his shoulders is enormous, sometimes threatening to smother him. The panic attacks he has at night when he’s trying to fall asleep are the only times he gets to be himself, and then he just _resents_ it. Why couldn’t he have been born as this Tyler? Why couldn’t it be second nature, like breathing and blinking and milk before cereal?

In chemistry class, Tyler learns about the melting points and boiling points of certain substances, but in psychology, nobody teaches him about breaking points of humans. It’s a much less precise science, and a much more frightening one. Tyler’s breaking point comes on a cool, rainy day in spring.

There is no inciting incident. It is like the quiet boiling of water or the slow freezing of ice: a gradual force applied steadily over time until the molecules of his very brain seem to fracture. He misses nearly three-fourths of his shots at basketball practice and the coach sends him home early with instructions. _You’re not yourself, Joseph_ , the coach says. _Get yourself together. Double suicide drills tomorrow._

Tyler walks home through the rain, so hungry that he can feel it in the back of his throat: a tightening, like he’s about to cry. Has he forgotten to eat again? He’s sure that he had some Waffle Crisp before leaving the house this morning—but maybe that was the morning _before_ this morning. The gentle, misting rain mixes with his sweat and burns his eyes.

He arrives home to an empty house. His brain is in a fog, the clouds of his mind hanging low over the ground as he trudges up the stairs to shower. Tyler has no indication of how frantic his breathing is until he is looking in the bathroom mirror, heat from the shower fogging the glass.

 _I’m dying_ , he thinks, squinting. His reflection looks strange: the line of his nose, the curve of his lips, the glint in his eyes. There’s no indication that something is _wrong_ or _different_ , but he can’t shake the feeling that it isn’t him. Whatever is looking at him in the mirror—it’s not himself.

Whatever is looking at him must be destroyed. He lays waste to the mirror with his knuckles. It cracks but does not shatter, so he hits it again and again and again until fragments of glass rain down into the sink and the bathroom floor—but now he is even more afraid. Now that he can’t _see_ it, he’s afraid that he has _become_ it. Breaking the mirror is not enough. He has to break himself.

Tyler picks through the wreckage of the mirror to find the gnarliest shard and begins leaving great slashes starting at his narrow wrists and working upwards until he runs out of room. The blood looks normal ( _God Tyler what has he done please stop this is enough_ ) but he is not fooled. There is evil inside him, evil that must be set free. He feels no pain, not until both arms are drenched and riddled with surface wounds. His head swims and he’s soaked in his own blood, so he steps into the shower with clothes and shoes on, sitting down on the floor and resting his back against the tiles. The heat is stifling, but his mind is suffocating.

The water makes his cuts sting, and all at once he feels the _pain_. Pain up and down his arms, pain in his heart and everywhere. There is the sound of crunching glass and he turns to see Zack standing in the doorway, mirror underfoot, staring.

“Accident,” Tyler says. “You should probably get mom.”

He bursts into tears and is still crying when Zack comes back—from what? Calling their mother? Calling an ambulance? Zack has to come into the fucking shower, soaking his school uniform, to get Tyler out, and he clings to his younger brother like their roles are reversed, crying ugly-tears until his heart grows numb. They wrap Tyler’s arms in bath towels and listen to the beating of the water in the shower against the tiled floor, a roar in the tiny enclosed space that leaves no room for conversation.

That doesn’t stop Zack, who leans over to shout in Tyler’s ear. “ _Why?_ ” And all Tyler can do is shrug, too weak for words.

#

Tyler rolls up his sleeves to show Josh. The older boy has to squint in the dim glow of the lamplight to see the faint, purple lines that mar Tyler’s tanned skin. “They weren’t as bad as they looked at the time. Only one even needed stitches. The others were glued shut and covered with those little butterfly-bandages, you know the ones?” Josh doesn’t speak.

“I spent time on the third floor, where your sister is. Then I spent a week at a facility in Westerville so that no one in Columbus would know. I had to promise my parents—never, ever again would I do something like that, but even then they made me go to therapy.

“Therapy was really great though. Not at all like some people make it out to be. My therapist was this guy—he let me call him Cooper. He was really good at his job; crazy smart and super empathetic. I told him everything, things I’d never told anyone before. Things I’ve never told anybody.” Tyler pauses, running his thumb over the lines on his wrist. “Nobody until you, I guess.”

“Ashley?”

“And Ashley. I told her a little—that things can get better. That it’s worth it. I showed her these,” he thrusts out his bared arms. “I don’t know if I said the right things or if I made any difference at all, but I had to try. I looked at her and I knew I had to try. Your sister seems like a really good person.”

“She is,” Josh says. “But there’s one thing I don’t understand. Blurryface.”

Tyler frowns. “Oh, him. Did you miss that? Blurryface is just—well—I guess he’s just sort of this voice in my head that tells me bad things about myself. Blurryface is those thoughts personified.”

It makes sense, but Josh is strangely dissatisfied. What is the personification of Tyler Joseph's negative thoughts doing messing with his sister?

Josh’s soup has gone cold. He drags his spoon through it, frowning, struggling to take in everything that Tyler said. There’s so much to think about, so much to turn over in his mind and pick apart that he almost wishes he could leave. A walk through the cold night air, alone with nothing but his thoughts and Tyler’s words.

“Well,” Tyler say quietly, tugging his sleeves down. “Now you know. That’s the story of the great Tyler Joseph.”

“Hey, woah, no,” Josh says. “Don’t say it like that. I’m sorry that you went through that stuff. You didn’t deserve that, and it doesn’t change how I feel about you, dude.”

But it does. Tyler just _came out_ to him—as what? Asexual? Josh didn’t even know that was a sexuality. What did that even mean? It certainly sounded like it meant that Josh was not only fucked, but well and truly fucked where his feelings for Tyler were concerned. Of course he would go nuts for a guy who couldn’t love him back. That was poetic justice. That was karma.

All of the terrible things that Tyler had been through made his chest ache to hear. In his head were images of a tiny-Tyler passing out birthday invitations, a living room decorated for a birthday party that no one attends. A lonely child who is picked on by other children and ignored by adults. An adolescent baring his heart only to be ridiculed and judged, like putting his heart into words on a page isn’t _good enough_. A teenager spending hours in his backyard wearing his body down to try and soothe his aching soul.

It’s Tyler’s pain, but then why does it hurt Josh _so badly?_

“It—doesn’t change anything?” Tyler repeats.

“Yeah. Well, I mean, that—god Tyler, I’m not good with words. I mean that it makes me sad for you. I’m sorry that you went through those things and I’m sorry that you felt like you had to do those things. But it doesn’t change the fact that I like you—that we’re friends, I mean. Unless _you_ feel differently.”

“I don’t,” Tyler says. “That is to say, that I just feel closer with you. I’ve been holding that stuff in for so long, and it’s so therapeutic to get it off my chest. I’m so glad that it doesn’t make you feel any differently about me. If I’d know that, I would have told you so much sooner. I was just afraid.”

Josh’s lips twitch into a frown. “I guess this means that you weren’t trying to hit on my sister.”

Tyler laughs. “No way, man. No offense. I just don’t feel that way about people.”

“No one?” Josh asks. He tries not to let the intensity of his question affect his tone of voice. He stirs his soup lackadaisically, dark eyes flickering towards Tyler’s figure. He’s scooping his own soup into his mouth: heaps of noodles and vegetables.

“No one,” Tyler confirms around a mouthful of soup. “Ever. That’s just how I am. Does that— does it bother you or something?”

Josh doesn’t reply right away. Part of him wants to support Tyler despite the fact that he doesn’t under what asexuality is. The other part of him is hurt. He’d been preparing himself all along to find out that Tyler isn’t gay, and for some reason to know this makes it worse. But Josh knows that to not accept Tyler for _whatever_ sexuality he is would be hypocritical.

Love means acceptance, even when it hurts.

“It doesn’t bother me at all,” Josh lies. The relief that comes over Tyler’s face makes the clenching of his heart worth it. Josh would feel that sting a thousand times over just to see Tyler smile like that.

“You can’t imagine how good it feels to tell someone after all this time,” Tyler says. His bowl is empty now, so he leans over to place it on his nightstand. Josh gets an eye-full of the sliver of tanned skin between Tyler’s shirt and pants and feels like a pervert. Face burning with shame, he looks away. He feels even more perverse now that he knows Tyler not only won’t ever reciprocate his feeling but that he _can’t_.

“You never told anyone?”

Tyler shakes his head in the negative. It feels strange—a good strange, though—that Tyler would be willing to trust _him_ with such a vulnerable part of himself. With such trust comes such responsibility: Josh knows that to betray Tyler’s trust with something of this magnitude would be dire.

He would never, ever do that though.

“I’m sure you have questions. I haven't even told you everything: what happened at school and all that. But there is something more _important_ that we need to take care of.”

“Ashley.”

“It’s been a few hours so she’s probably sleeping now. Are you tired enough to sleep?”

“Always,” Josh mutters. He gestures to his soup, most full. His appetite has fled from him. There’s a hollow feeling in his gut—but that same hollow feeling is in his heart and his head, so he doesn’t think it’s related to his hunger. “What should I do with this?”

Tyler scoops up both bowls and sneaks out his bedroom door, silent as a mouse. While alone, Josh peers out of the bedroom to look for a bathroom. There’s one two doors down, door gently cracked. He changes out of his school uniform and brushes his teeth mechanically. These are acts he’s done a thousand times that require no thought. He’s staring at his own reflection in the bathroom mirror when he realizes that maybe this is _the_ bathroom. There’s no evidence left over from Tyler’s mental breakdown (and really, it’s been months since it occurred so of course there wouldn’t be) but he can imagine the vacancy of the shattered mirror, the deafening roar of the shower, the broken glass under his feet.

Josh feels numb to it. He’s already faced Ashley’s mess. Tyler’s is like a match on a fire.

Coming out of the bathroom, Tyler is standing there waiting.

“My turn,” he says, slipping past. The door shuts gently behind him and Josh wonders what it must be like for Tyler to have come home from the hospital and face that bathroom. He imagines that it must have felt something like seeing the inside of your coffin but living to tell the tale. Shivering, he goes back to Tyler’s bedroom, creeping carefully, remembering Mrs. Joseph’s threats should any of the younger Joseph siblings awaken.

“Are you ready?” Tyler whispers across the room after they both return and Josh has settled in to the bed across the room. Tyler is hovering by the desk, waiting to shut off the lamp. “Is there anything you need, bro?”

“Warm milk?” Josh asks, and Tyler’s laugh makes the lame joke worth it.

There is a click and the room is bathed in darkness. His eyes struggle to adjust, but he can hear the shuffle of feet across carpet and the rustle of sheets as Tyler crawls into bed.

“Everything is going to be okay,” Tyler says to the darkness, and he sounds so _sure_ that there isn’t any room for doubt.

Josh closes his eyes and falls straight asleep.

 


	21. Dust to Dust

Josh opens his eyes and is already staring into Tyler’s. Tyler is crouched up on the bed, not _straddling_ Josh but definitely leaning dangerously far over him, hands on the older boy’s shoulders, shaking violently until his teeth rattle in his skull. Judging by the tremor in Tyler’s arms, he’s been shaking for more than just a moment. The bedroom above them is swathed in shadows but obviously the same places where they fell asleep only moments ago. His heart clenches in his chest—what’s happened? Where’s the Treehouse? What went wrong?

“Josh, you have to get up. We have to go.” Tyler stands up off of the bed at the sight of Josh’s eyes cracked open. The dim shadows can't hide the fact that he’s still in the boxers he wore to bed, tugging a pair of weathered jeans up over his slim hips. The sight of Tyler’s hand fiddling with the button and zipper on his pants makes something low in Josh’s stomach clench tight.

“What’s going on? The dreaming didn’t work?” His throat convulses with panic. “God. Ashley.

Did my mom call?”

“Josh. We _are_ dreaming.”

Josh glances around the room. In the near total darkness, there seems to be nothing different. Everything is in its place from the ukulele on the desk to the clothes peeking out from underneath the opposite bed. Is Tyler crazy? This looks nothing like the dreams they’ve shared together before. All prior dreamwalking experiences involve fantastic scenery like dry deserts and roiling oceans and misty forests. While Tyler's bedroom certainly holds a mystical property to _Josh_ , he doesn't quite think it's similar.

Tyler nods to the window. “Look, bro.”

Josh stumbles out of bed. For some reason, he’s not shy about his almost-naked body as he stalks across the room to the window. When he glances out, he gapes. Tyler’s bedroom window faces the road—and the road is all that’s left of the world. The sidewalk clings to the pavement only just, jagged with large chunks of concrete flaking away at the edges. Beyond the sidewalk is nothing—an inky darkness where nothing and no light lives. There are no houses, no yards, no grass or trees. There is just the void of emptiness. All that exists anymore is the misty yard of the Joseph’s and the road leading off into town.

“But the road is all we need,” Josh says darkly.

“Get dressed,” Tyler says, tossing Josh his shirt. “We’ve got an appointment.”

“Yeah. An appointment kicking Blurry’s ass,” Josh mutters, tugging the shirt of his head and broad shoulders.

Tyler passes his jeans next, smiling faintly. “No. Well—yes, but our appointment is with the hospital administrator.”

Josh stares blankly, one foot stepped into his pants, jeans pooling into a denim puddle on the floor.

 

“With _who?_ ”

“I’ll explain on the way.” Tyler snags his keys off of his desk, shoving his feet into a pair of floral shoes. Josh trails him out of the bedroom door feeling extra-loud while clomping in his untied sneakers. The hallway is dark and misty. Every door is thrown wide open (unlike the last time Josh walked through) except for the bathroom door. It is shut tightly with caution tape marking it off like it’s some kind of crime scene. From the other side is the quiet roar of the shower, like someone is inside. “Funny,” Tyler mutters as he goes by, but it gives Josh shivers.

All of the bedrooms of Tyler’s siblings and parents are empty. He watches the younger boy duck his head into each, looking more and more relieved with each clear room. The house feels empty, like a tomb. When they step outside, the feeling magnifies, like they are alone in the world, like they are alone in the universe, like the _universe_ is their tomb. It’s the smallest Josh has ever felt, but it doesn’t matter how small he feels.

Ashley is all that matters. He will hold on to the thought of her, wrap the thought of her around himself like armor. It will be a reserve of strength that he draws from at his weakest moments. She’s at the hospital in town, and she might be in trouble. Josh usually feels weak, but not in these dreams, and not for Ashley. For her, he can be strong, even if he can’t be strong for himself.

Tyler’s car sits in the driveway. They slip into their respective seats, buckling their seatbelts more out of habit than necessity. The engine makes no noise when they key is turned (for a moment Josh thinks the battery is completely dead, which would be just his luck), but when the younger boy puts it into reverse, the car moves like it’s compelled by a force all its own. It’s freaky. The constant static that emits from the radio when Josh leans forward to turn it on is freaky. The large, blank moon overhead that is constantly waxing and waning? Freaky.

Josh isn’t freaked. He doesn’t have time to be. “Tell me about this appointment,” he demands.

“I fell into the dream before you. There was a woman sitting at the desk in my room—she said that if we didn’t hurry, we’d be late for our appointment.”

“You trust her?” Josh asks. “What if it’s a trap?”

Tyler smiles. “Blurry’s traps usually are more obvious. He either comes as himself or sends his shadow-things. This woman—she had _glasses_.” Tyler says it like glasses are the end-all-be-all of trustworthiness. He holds out his wrist and Josh sees that there is a golden wrist-watch there. There are no numbers except for the 12 at the top of the face, with a single hand pointing just past it. “She gave me this. We’re supposed to be at her office on the third floor when the hand strikes twelve.”

“Will our carriage turn back into a pumpkin if we aren't?” Josh snarks. “Who cares about an appointment? Ashley is in trouble.”

“I think the two might be related,” Tyler says calmly. “And I’d appreciate a little less sarcasm and a few more Disney references if you have them, because I’m kind of scared to death right now, and I could use some comedic relief.” The younger boy’s mouth suddenly gapes and he slaps his palm against his forehead. “Shoot. I forgot. She said to check the trunk.”

“Check the trunk. You don’t think we should have checked that before we left?”

Tyler groans, leaning an elbow against the steering wheel and rubbing at his forehead like the mock-blow he gave himself hurt. “Look, I’m sorry, it’s just—things are weird outside. I wanted to get in the car as fast as I could, and I guess it slipped my mind. Honest mistake. Whatever’s in there will still be there when we make it to the hospital.”

“What if it’s my sister?” Josh suggests. “What if we’re driving down Second Street with my sister in your trunk?”

“She would be safer in my trunk than she is with Blurryface,” Tyler says. “But she isn’t in there. She’s at the hospital. Come on, Josh. Where else would—Look!”

 

Tyler points and Josh’s eyes follow the line of his finger. Standing on the concrete sidewalk at the edge of the world is a figure made of shadows, limbs too long for its body. One thin arm is outstretched, thumb erect, hitchhiking. Josh's mouth goes dry.

“Don’t you dare stop,” Josh whispers, eyes glued to the creature as Tyler slows the car and they creep closer. “I swear to god Tyler, if you stop the car, I’ll—”

“I’m not stopping,” Tyler mutters as they roll by, slowing to a crawl, staring out at it like it’s a car crash and therefore impossible to look away from. It stares back with a featureless face, head cocked gentle like it’s sizing them up. “My backseat is filthy—totally not fit for company.”

Josh blinks. Then he laughs, bending over at the waist until he’s folded nearly in half, laughing loudly into his knees and the dashboard. He hears Tyler’s quiet giggle from the driver’s seat, muffled as if behind his hand.

“Really though—I wasn’t kidding,” Tyler says, and the look he gives is tender—almost _lover like_ , though Josh knows that there’s no way Tyler could possibly feel that way about him. “I’d always stop my car for you, bro. Always.”

Josh’s scalp prickles. Nothing about that statement makes sense to him, and the way Tyler said it —freaky.

At the thought, the radio gives a particularly loud crackle, the murmur of words breaking through the static. He reaches for the dial and cranks up the volume, and the voice that comes through the speakers is all too familiar.

“… _can expect a cool evening with_ empty _skies abounding. There’s a one hundred percent chance of misery and misfortune if Josh Dun enters Grand Medical Center, so it’s probably best if he just fucking stays away—_ ” Blurryface dissolves into laughter, mouth so close to the mic that it makes the speakers crackle with the volume.

Tyler reaches out and shuts the radio off, face white. “I hate that song.”

The rest of the ride passes in silence. There are no other cars on the road, but Tyler obeys the speed limits. Doesn’t he understand that Ashley could be _trouble?_ It seems to Josh like a little speed could be beneficial. Dream or not, part of him feels like this is life or death. Part of him feels like if he can save Ashley in their dreams, maybe she’ll be okay in real life.

Yeah, right.

They pull up to Grant Medical Center. The parking lot is entirely vacant, and they choose the closest spot to the emergency entrance. A gentle snow has started to fall, crunching under their shoes as they exist the car and move around back to the trunk. It gives the air an extra stillness that is tangible, enveloping. Josh has always loved the snow; the sight of it gives him peace.

He shivers in the cold while Tyler opens the trunk. They peer in, unsure what they might find.

Tyler reaches in first and removes a nametag on a lanyard. In the dim light, both can see that the ID belongs to him, a picture of his face and his name resting there above a barcode. Josh squints through the darkness in the trunk, leaning down to pick up the only familiar items that rest there.

Two drumsticks.

“Now I feel safe,” Tyler says, smiling. For some reason, Josh doesn’t think that he’s joking.

“What about you? What if you need to defend yourself?"

“I’m not scared,” Tyler says, shutting the trunk with a _thud_. “I’m with _you_.”

#

Ashley thinks that she might be dreaming, but only because it is snowing inside the hospital. Great, fat flakes drift from the ceiling and settle softly on the surfaces around the room: bedside tables and machinery and her bare arms. She shivers, puckered with goosebumps. Across from her, pacing the floor beside her bed, is Blurryface. He’s wearing Tyler’s skin now, dressed warmly in white, a vivid-red beanie tugged low over his ears. He looks so _warm._

“Blanket,” she croaks through a dry throat. There is a tube running up into her nose and down her throat, and the movement of it when she speaks nearly makes her gag. “Please. So cold.”

Blurryface stops his pacing. His eyes are wide and startled as if he’s forgotten she was there, or forgotten she could get cold. It’s such an innocent expression that it’s easy to mistake him for Tyler. Without more prompting, he goes to the tiny closet at the corner of the room. The closet is empty except for excess blankets, gowns, pillows, and a plastic bag filled with the clothes and shoes she was wearing when the medics brought her in. He grabs a rough woven blankets and shakes it open, coming around to tuck her in like her mother used to when she was a child.

“They’re on their way for you,” he says lowly, going about his work with distant eyes. Black smudges of paint smear off of his hands and onto the blanket, like everything he touches is ruined. “Does that make you feel better? Does it give you hope?”

 

“Yes,” she says. She thinks. “No. You’re going to hurt Josh.”

“My friends are going to _obliterate_ Josh, heart and soul,” he murmurs, gently tucking the blanket around her bare legs. “There’s a difference.”

Ashley wants to cry, but she’s cried so much that the well of her tears has dried up. All this time spent with Blurryface, she has tried to remain strong. Josh would want her to be strong—Josh _is_ strong. But she feels so weak. “Just keep me instead. Josh didn’t do anything to you.”

“And you did?” Blurry asks. “Don’t take it personally. This has nothing to do with you, and it barely has anything to do with Josh. Scoot your legs over.”

She does so even though it takes all of her strength, inching them aside weakly to make room for him to sit on her hospital bed. He is slender, tucking his legs up underneath him. It’s a conversant position, like they’re two girls preparing to gossip at a slumber party. Reaching out, he flicks where the tube in her nose is taped to the side of her face. The jostling movement of it reverberates down her throat and she gags.

“Quit it,” he says quietly. “I’m trying to concentrate. They’re being very quiet, like little church mice.”

“Why are you doing this?” She asks.

“Self-preservation,” he murmurs. When he smiles, it’s so earnestly, so much Tyler Joseph that it’s hard to believe this is the same creature an hour ago who doused her gown and bedclothes in gasoline. _Contingency plan,_ he said. _I’m sure you understand._

Reaching down, Blurryface plucks a box from underneath the bed. “Say. Want to play checkers?”

#

Josh and Tyler cross the parking lot, taking care not to slip in the snow and ice. The hospital is lit up like Christmas: every light on and every blind and window open, but there is not a single person in sight. The desk in the emergency room is vacant, no nurse to direct them. There are no patients in the seats waiting to be cared for, no squeak of footsteps on the tiled floors, no murmur of voices. It is overwhelmingly and encompassingly silent.

“This way,” Tyler points. “The elevators that lead to the third floor are this way. You don't need special permission to take it, but we will need the key to get into the wing.”

Josh leads, drumsticks drawn and extended, clenched tightly in either hand. He isn’t sure what to expect—archaic booby-traps or dangerous arch enemies. Either way, the warm presence at his back keeps him on high alert. Tyler trust him; Tyler needs protecting at all costs. He has the Key.

The elevator is around the corner: great steel doors glistening in the overhead fluorescent light. Leaning forward, he jabs his finger at the arrow that points upward, watching it depress and glow warmly. Tyler comes forward to stand close enough that their shoulders brush, bare skin warm as opposed the unnaturally cool temperature of the hospital.

“You touch me a lot in our dreams,” Josh says.

Tyler shrugs. “I do? That’s weird.”

“I’m not complaining.” Josh blinks. Was he _flirting?_ No—he couldn’t have been. There was no awkward staring or copious amounts of laughing at things that aren’t funny. Those things are the trademarks of Josh flirting. Still. He flickers his eyes over to Tyler to see if the younger boy is offended, but he doesn’t look to be. Warm eyes are squinted in thought. He looks like Josh in French class when their teacher refuses to speak English and he’s trying to decipher whether she’s saying _glass_ or _green_ or something in between.

“Josh,” Tyler says slowly. “Will you take the watch?”

For a moment, Josh has no idea what Tyler is talking about. The younger boy fiddles with his thin wrist and then he remembers—of course. The watch that is counting down the minutes until their _appointment_ with the hospital administrator. Time has passed and the hand on the clock’s face is pointing nearly east if it were a compass.

“Why?”

“Blurryface might try to split us up. If that happens, it’s most important that you make it to the meeting—and on time.”

Josh frowns, turning over Tyler’s words in his head. A part of him wants to refuse the watch. If he accepts it, then he accepts the fact that their plan isn’t perfect—that something might split them up, that things might go _wrong_. He can’t afford to be fallible with Ashley’s safety on the line.

But to not accept the watch is foolish. He straps it around his wrist. It’s still warm from Tyler’s skin.

“If something happens to one of us,” Josh says. “Don’t forget that Ashley is the most important thing. One of us has to get to her, at all costs.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that if something happens and I have to choose between saving you or saving Ashley,

I’m going to choose her. Every time. I need you to promise the same thing.”

“I mean, of course. I sort of figured that. But if something happens to you, you want me to leave you behind?” Tyler sounds aghast at the thought, and yeah Josh would be lying if he said that did nothing to his ego. It feels good to know that Tyler doesn’t want to lose Josh. It feels very good.

“Promise that you’ll help Ashley.”

Tyler presses his lips together and nods tightly. “Alright. I promise.”

The elevator arrives, doors opening slowly. They step inside and there is only one other button to press: 3. Tyler does the honors, fiddling with the lanyard around his neck. The picture of him looks recent, hair still long before he cuts it for basketball season. Judging by the way Tyler is squinting and frowning at the photo, it isn’t one he can remember having taken. Josh shudders.

“What’s the plan?” Tyler asks, eyes fixed on his lanyard.

“Rescue Ashley.”

“Sounds solid.”

“Do you have a more _detailed_ idea?” Josh asks amicably. “Because trust me, I’m very open to suggestions right now.”

Tyler sighs, glancing up to watch the floor number change on the digital screen at the top of the elevator. “I don’t have any plans. I don’t know anything. I don’t even know what Blurry would want with Ashley in the first place. Josh—look—the elevator is going up too high.”

He turns to stare at the digital screen above their heads just as it changes from a large 3 to a 4.

Their conversation is cut off by the lurching of the elevator. There is the deep grinding of metal and the lights flicker, off, on, then off for good just as the inner doors grind open to reveal the steel walls of the elevator shaft. They have broken down between floors. For a moment, the only light is the soft glow of the emergency button they’re supposed to press to call for help. Josh has a feeling that pressing that button will get them the opposite of _help_.

A hand grips his arm again, tight. Tyler clings to him, immediately panicking. “Josh, I don’t like this. I don’t like tiny dark metallic death traps. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I don’t like hospitals filled with psychopaths who want me and my friends and their sisters dead, but this is like—this is worse. What are we going to do? We’re going to die in here!”

Normally Josh would feel the same way, but in these dreams, none of his old fears touch him.

Feeling in the dark, he clasps hands with Tyler. He isn’t sure if that’s going to be cool with Tyler —but judging by the way the younger boys grips back tightly, clasping palms and nearly squeezing Josh’s hand in half, it’s very cool. It’s necessary.

“It’s alright,” Josh says. “We’ll just go out through the elevator shaft. We have to be close to the third floor. I’ll bet we’re practically right there.”

“How will we get down to it?” Tyler asks through his anxious panting.

“We won’t,” Josh says. “We’ll go _up._ ”

#

Blurryface is very good at checkers. The first game they play, she barely makes any effort, shuffling her black checkers around the board just to keep up appearances. It’s too hard to see much through her blurring eyes, anyway. He takes all of her checkers and loses only one of his own. They play again and again until she manages to get three of his checkers. No matter how many times he wins, he doesn’t get tired of it.

“You’re terrible at thinking ahead,” he says gleefully, jumping a checker. “That's common knowledge, though, I suppose. Trying to off yourself with pills was so womanly. Did you know that? Women attempt suicide more often than men, but men are more successful. Men tend to choose foolproof methods: guns and hanging.”

“There aren’t any guns in my house,” Ashley mutters. She moves one her checkers directly into Blurry’s line of fire because there’s nowhere else for her to move. It’s the lesser of two evils.

“Don’t interrupt me when I’m talking. That's very rude. Women choose methods that are faulty, because they’re fickle. They fear the pain. They fear the certainty. Deep down—they _want_ to fail.” He jumps her checker and palms it off of the board.

“That isn’t true.” Ashley moves one of her checkers forward and manages to jump Blurry. He loses his first checker of the game, and she clenches it in her fist like a badge of pride, struggling not to throw it at him.

“It’s a fact,” Blurry says dismissively. He double jumps her and takes two checkers. Now she has one left, still lingering in the far back corner of her side of the board. Forced to make a move, she shifts it forward, sensing that the end is near. “You are a living example. You didn’t want to die. If you had, you would be dead, and you wouldn’t be about to lose your _seventh_ game of checkers in a row. Come _on_ , Ashes, are you even trying?”

“That’s not true. I didn’t want to live—I don’t!”

“Keep trying to convince yourself,” he says blandly. His checkers inch closer and she can do nothing but move her own further into his clutches, feeling a sense of helplessness that goes far beyond the game they’re playing. “I’ll never understand. You had a body! Do you know what I would do to have control of a body? I’d kill. I will kill. I have killed. Every inch I’ve gained in my endeavors has been hard earned through years of blood and sweat and tears (mostly other people’s, mind you).

“Yet _you?_ You are born in control of this body and all you do is destroy it. You’re unworthy. I hope that someday, someone like me comes along and snatches it from you to put it to better use.”

“You don’t understand anything,” Ashley says through her teeth. “You don’t know anything about me or what I'm going through.”

“The world is hard, honey. Buck up or bow out and make room for those of us who can handle it and won’t complain.” Blurryface groans, jumping her final checker. “Really. Are you sure you’re trying? You’re a very weak strategist. So is your brother—going through the elevator shaft? Genius move. That _never_ goes wrong.”

 

Ashley has absolutely no idea what that means, but she knows when someone is insulting her brother, and it makes her feel snide and brave. And foolish. “What would you have done differently?”

“I wouldn’t have moved _that_ checker to the E7 position to start with, but honestly you didn’t have much choice because of deep flaws in your starting strategy—”

“Not the stupid game. If you were Josh. What would you have done?”

Blurryface frowns. “I don’t think I like your tone. Are you not liking your stay at Hotel del Blurry? I’m feeding you with a fucking nasogastric tube, which was just as difficult for me to put in place as it was for you to have it shoved down your esophagus I’d imagine— _and_ , as if that isn’t enough, I’m keeping you warm and entertained. I’d be very careful if I were you in case I turn you into Ashes-flambé.”

Ashley smacks the checkerboard. Red and black checkers rain down, scattering over the floor, board clattering onto the tiles. For the first time, Blurryface looks absolutely incredulous and then _unhinged_. She is proud—frightened, but proud. “I don’t like your bedside service. I didn’t ask for it. Screw you.”

Blurryface huffs a gentle laugh, and his breath is visible in the frigid air. “Maybe I was wrong. You really do have a deathwish, don’t you? I thought the suicidal schoolgirl routine might have been a gimmick, but you mean it. You’re fucking asking for it.”

“Don’t talk about that.”

“Is that a sore subject? How much do you think the hospital bill for this is going to be, Ashes?

Twenty thousand? Thirty thousand?”

“Stop.”

“Forty thousand dollars? I hope you parents have kept up on your health insurance, because if not, they’re going to be in quite the mess. I’d be doing them all a favor lighting up your bones and making a nice little bonfire.”

“Shut up!”

“ _WATCH YOUR FUCKING MOUTH WHEN YOU TALK TO ME YOU SELFISH CUNT._ ”

They are nearly nose to nose, and the sheer volume of his voice makes her flinch and tremble. She clamps her teeth together, crying. When she sniffs her nose, the tube makes her gag. “A woman’s place is seen and not heard, Ashes. I’m sorry that I had to be the one to teach you the lesson.” He reaches for a syringe and fiddles with his end of the tube up her nose.

“What are you doing?” She croaks.

“Putting you to sleep. I’d rather have your dull company than your irritating company. Say goodnight, Ashes.” It doesn’t take long for her head to swim and eyes to have trouble focusing. Blurry leans close and plants a freezing kiss on her forehead, the mockery of affection. When he speaks, he whispers, ruffling her bangs. “And by the way—what would I have done if I were Josh? That’s a trick question.

“I wouldn’t have bothered trying to save you at all.”

#

Tyler is the one who gets hoisted up to reach the top of the elevator. He’s skinnier. Josh has absolutely no perverse ulterior motives for kneeling down and wrapping his arms around Tyler’s thighs (and he feels absolutely _nothing_ improper, even with his hands so close to Tyler’s ass because that would be completely inappropriate, but probably not as inappropriate as having his head pressed against Tyler’s stomach—or is it pelvis? Because really when does the stomach become the pelvis, is there a scientific way for him to tell because—

“Josh. Higher.”

Face burning in the dark, Josh lifts Tyler up further. He hears the sound of the trap door in the ceiling being pushed away, and then Tyler is lifting himself up and onto the top of the elevator. He immediately reaches a hand down, swishing it back and forth in front of Josh’s face in the dark. It’s through sheer adrenalin that he manages to pull the older boy up enough so that he can hoist himself inside the darkness of the elevator shaft.

When they both stand, tentative in the darkness, the elevator makes a sharp noise of metal on metal and sways dangerously under their feet.

“This isn’t any better Josh, not better _at all_ ,” Tyler mutters.

“We have to be brave,” Josh says. “On my count, jump.”

Tyler groans, long and low, shaking his head. “Terrible idea. Terrible, terrible idea.”

“Do you have a better one?” Josh breathes. “Because I’m totally listening dude.” Another groan.

 

“On three. One. Two. _Three!_ ”

They jump (Tyler’s hardly constitutes as a jump considering that he only bounced gently on his toes, feet never leaving the roof) and the elevator makes the same noise of distress, drifting downwards towards floor three only barely.

“Come on, Tyler. We have to jump.”

“Fine—fine. Okay. On three.”

“One. Two. _Three._ ”

They jump, and this time both of their feet leave the ground. If it weren’t for the solid roof of the elevator, they might have gone right through with the force of their landings. The elevator gave a metallic shriek. It lurches dangerously under their feet and _drops_. For a moment they are floating on air as the elevator moves downward beneath them, and Josh suddenly regrets all of his life decisions but mostly this most recent one, because this was a _terrible_ idea, and they are falling and will break only their legs if they’re lucky—

The elevator stops. It has fallen just off center of the third floor so that the openings of each are just offset. Light floods their eyes, blinding them. Josh’s knees connect with the elevator roof and he feels the ache all the way up his femurs and down to his toes. Tyler is not so lucky. He loses his balance and falls through the open trap door back down into the elevator. The sound his body makes when he connects to the bottom is terrible, one that Josh will never forget.

“ _Tyler!_ ” Josh bellows, gritting his teeth through the pain in his legs to crawl to the hole and stare down into the elevator. Tyler is on his hands and groaning.

“I’m okay,” Tyler calls back. “I don’t think anything’s broken, but it really hurts—”

“We did it,” Josh says. The elevator has come to rest just offset of the opening for the third floor.

Both inner and outer doors of the elevator are open revealing the brightly lit hallway: blue tiled floors and cream walls. There is only a narrow opening above the elevator, barely large enough for Josh to shimmy his body through, and if he did, he’d have to drop down onto the hallway’s floor. If he drops back into the elevator, the exposed opening of floor three is much larger, and with a single step upwards, they’d be on solid ground.

They were in the clear.

“I’m coming down, okay?” Josh calls.

Beneath him, Tyler is struggling to stand. He leans heavily against the wall, giving a weak thumbs up. He looks out into the hallway and his eyes grow wide.

“NO.”

Josh jerks in surprise, feet dangling down through the trapdoor, hands braced along the opening to lower himself down. “What? What is it?”

“Go! Get up! Don’t come down here!” Tyler is frantic, reaching up to grab at the trapdoor dangling open. He tries to shut it with Josh’s feet in the way. From somewhere (echoing off of the solid walls and sounding like it could be coming from _anywhere_ or _everywhere_ ) is a low growling that makes the hairs on Josh’s arms stand on end. The growling grows and swells and multiplies. “Dogs! It’s dogs!”

 

“Give me your hand!” Josh shouts. “Let me pull you up!”

“You said you wouldn’t save me!”

And yeah, Josh knows what he said—but it’s a lot easier to say that he could let Tyler go than it is to actually _do_ it. Tucking his legs back up out of the elevator, he reaches down through the trapdoor, offering his hand.

And even though Tyler said that he would let himself be lost, Josh figures that something like that is a lot easier to say than to face. The younger boy reaches up, and their fingers brush each other. He jumps and for a moment Josh has a grip on Tyler’s wrist, but it slips free. The growling has grown louder, nearly deafening, punctuated by angry barks.

“Come on, jump! Jump!”

“I’m—trying!”

Changing his strategy, Josh grabs one of his drumsticks, clutching it firmly at either end the way he might the rung of a ladder. Flattening himself on the roof of the elevator, he leans down through the door to offer the stick to Tyler. When the younger boy jumps, he manages to wrap a hand around the vacant expanse of stick between Josh’s hands. Pulling upward, Tyler stretches his free hand to the lip of the trapdoor—

One dog makes the leap from the hallway down into the elevator. It is one of the biggest dogs Josh has ever seen: black from the tip of its pointed ears and down to its sharp nails that have it skittering on the tile. Its teeth are bared in a snarl, sharp and dripping with foam and fury. Without pause, the beast bounds for Tyler, clenching its jaws around the boy’s thigh and clamping down. He is pulled free, drumstick clattering down into the floor.

 

The scream Tyler gives makes every part of Josh ache: his clenched teeth, his ears, his heart.

Josh reaches down and barely snags the door to pull it up and into place. From the narrow opening he can look through to see the third floor hallway, he can see a flood of four, six, eight dogs biting and scratching their way into the elevator. The noises coming from beneath him are impossible to block out, even when he puts both hands over his ears. Tyler’s screams pierce through his hands.

Josh stands, and he jumps, making sure to prolong his landing for as long as possible so that it occurs with more force. It doesn’t take much for the elevator to move again, not with the added weight of the dogs inside. It lurches under his feet and he nearly falls, barely collecting his balance. Half of the entrance to the hall is exposed to him now. The screams from inside the elevator have stopped—but the _tearing_ … He jumps again, and again the elevator moves. The entire entrance is open to him now, all of the dogs trapped inside the elevator under his feet.

The only noise is the distant, muffled sound of well-fed dogs.

#

Limbs shaking with the remnants of adrenalin, Josh takes his first steps from the elevator and into the third floor hallway. It is a most empty corridor. There are no cork bulletin boards, no bathrooms, no station of hand sanitizer like the intensive care unit’s hallway had. His shoes make gentle squeaks on the floor as he crosses cautiously, his only remaining drumstick clutched firmly in his hand.

Instead of a phone by the doors so that he can call to be let through, there is a button below a black, glossy camera lens. Above that is a place to scan a barcode—and Tyler had the Key. Tyler, gone in the elevator, ripped to shreds like a rabbit in a rabid dog’s jaws.

Josh feels beaten. He takes a moment to give up (just one moment, he promises himself, because sometimes that's all he needs), leaning his head against the wall above the camera lens and barcode-scanner. This has not gone as planned, and the screams of Tyler still echo around in his head, banging off the bone of his skull like there isn’t enough room for them.

But Ashley. He has to continue on for her. She is the only reason he pushes away from the wall and presses the button below the camera. It rings and he waits impatiently for someone—or something—to pick up. The longer it rings, the more sure he is that nothing _will_ answer the call.

He won’t gain access to the third floor hospital rooms. He won’t be able to find Ashley.

The ringing ends. It’s Blurryface on the other end, voice cheerful. “Yes?” “I’m here for Ashley,” Josh says through gritted teeth.

“I’ll bet you are. How did you get past my beasts?”

“You mean those poodles?” Josh asks. “Easy. I threw them a bone.”

Blurryface laughs. “Quite a few bones, it looks like. Enough for a whole Tyler-shaped skeleton!” The doors ahead open, slow and mechanical. “You’re sassy like your sister. It must be something in your DNA. I’ll be sure to let her know that you said hi. Bye, Joshua.”

 

Josh strikes out at the glossy lens of the camera, but it does more damage to his stick than his stick does to it. Gritting his teeth together, he hurries past the doors which immediately begin to close behind him. The hallway continues on, widening in the middle for a nurse’s desk and kiosk which sits vacant. Both sides of the walls are lined with doors—some numbered as patients’ rooms, others not.

He realizes that he absolutely no clue which room Ashley is in.

He will check them all.

Starting with the door on his left: 3001. It’s a thick oaken door, polished to gloss, with an imposing silver handle that locks, but Josh doesn’t have time to feel imposed. A glance down at his wrist shows that the hand is pointing straight down. If it is a traditional clock, only lacking the other numbers and hands, then Josh only has thirty minutes before his appointment. To make matters worse, he also has no idea where _that_ will be. But one monumental problem at a time.

Wrapping his hand around the cool handle, he thrusts the door open. Empty.

So is 3002 on the opposite side of the hallway.

And 3003.

The rooms after that are restrooms, both devoid of people. They reek of lemon-scented cleaner, like someone has just been there to mop the floors and scrub the toilets.

3004, and 5, and 6, 7, 8, 9. The room after is a closet, filled with blankets and gowns, and he doesn’t think Ashley is hiding inside one of the pillowcases (as much as he would like her to be). He’s tempted to take one of the blankets and wrap it around his shoulders like a cape because he’s so cold, but he doesn't. The further he gets into this wing of the hospital, the more frigid the air becomes. The next room is a place for x-ray's to be read, and the x-ray up on the wall is of a human's rib cage, only it has been replaced with an empty metal cage. He keeps moving, refusing to linger.

3010? Empty.

So many rooms have let him down that when he throws open the door to room 3011, he isn’t expecting to see someone there.

Curled up on the bed is Tyler, hair buzzed short. He’s got one of the hospital-grade blankets tucked up underneath his armpits, wrists and ankles restrained to the bed. A tube is threaded up through his nostril, and it looks downright painful taped to his cheek. The younger boy looks hollowed, bandaged from his palms to his shoulders. The television in the corner of the room is on, flickering, casting an eerie light around everything.

Josh creeps forward into the room, unsure _why_ , but feeling compelled to go to Tyler’s bedside. A noise from beside him causes him to turn.

The adjacent bathroom’s door is wide open, warm light spilling out. When Josh looks in, he sees that it is like looking into the Joseph’s upstairs bathroom. On his hands and knees mopping up blood with paper towels is Zack Joseph. He glances up at Josh, eyes red with tears. His face twists into a grimace. Abandoning the rag on the floor, he stands up and crosses to the bathroom door. “Can’t we get some fucking privacy?” The door slams shut.

Jolted, Josh jerks backwards and right out of the room into the hallway. He closes the door behind him and rests his back against it, shivering from more than just the cold. It takes several long moments for him to regain his nerve and go through more doors, and now, he is even more cautious, never sure of what could be lingering on the other side.

They are all empty.

“Where is she,” Josh mutters. He glances down at his watch only to see that the hand is pointing _past the twelve_. He is _late._ Not to mention he has no idea where to go.

Josh starts running through the halls, glancing at the nameplates beside each door and only opening the ones that don’t have numbers and therefore couldn’t be patients’ rooms. This wing of the hospital curves, making a sharp right that causes him to skid in his tennis shoes. Door after door passes, numbers creeping up passed 3120 and still there is no door— Until there is one.

If the HOSPITAL ADMINISTRATOR plaque above the door didn’t clue him in, the

‘WELCOME JOSHUA DUN!’ sign taped next to it would have. Unsure what the polite thing to do is, he knocks frantically to alert anyone inside to his presence and then throws open the door to step inside.

It is very much like any office might be expected to be. The carpet is short and a few shades darker than the tiles in the hall. The walls are lined with file shelves and framed documents. A large mahogany desk rests against the far wall, and silhouetted from the large window letting in the waxing moonlight is a woman of indiscriminate age with hair as dark as ink and pulled tightly into a bun. She reaches up a pale hand to push the glasses that have been tipping forward back onto the bridge of her nose, and they magnify her dark eyes.

“You are late.”

“I’m sorry,” Josh says, out of breath.

“No time. Sit.”

He takes a seat in one of the arm chairs in front of her desk. The whole setup reminds him of Dean Whitlock’s office—memories he’d rather not think of just yet. “You wanted to see me?”

 

“I have implicit knowledge on the one you call Blurryface. Please ask questions and I will answer them to the best of my abilities.” She folds her thin hands in front of her, resting her fingertips just under her chin.

Josh shakes his head as if to clear away cobwebs. “Sorry—what?”

“No time. I’m here to assist you. I can’t rattle off knowledge, but I have permission to answer questions. You have approximately two minutes. Hurry.”

“I—I’m sorry—this is just—”

“ _Hurry._ ”

“Who are you?”

“I’m a consultant sent from a higher power to answer your questions and assist you in the defeat of Blurryface and the rescue of your sister.” She scowls. “Was that a conscious question, or are you still in shock?”

Josh presses his lips together tightly. “Who’s your higher power?”

“The one who runs the Treehouse. Are you really going to waste all your time asking questions about your ally rather than your enemy?”

“Well I don’t know who my 'ally' is, so it seems like a smart choice to me,” Josh snaps.

“Then your sister will be lost. This requires _trust_.” She stands, gathering together papers and bending to retrieve a suitcase. At the corner of her desk is an hourglass, blue sand drifting downward at an increasing rate.

“Fine—fine! Where is Blurryface?”

“The top floor.”

“How do I get there?”

 

“The fire escape should work." She jerks her thumb at the window behind her. "We're working on fixing the elevator. It seems to be out of order.”

“No kidding. What does Blurryface want with Ashley?”

“He’s using her to get to you.”

“How, though? She left that message—”

“High doses of the benzodiazepines that your sister overdosed on cause hallucinations. It was the open window that he needed to infest her mind and now her dreams.”

“What does he want with _me?_ ”

“Your demise.”

“Why?”

“You’re getting in the way of his plans to assume control of Tyler and the Treehouse.”

Josh’s head reals with this information but his mouth refusing to stop moving before the sand has run out. “How do I stop him?” She smiles, sad. “You can’t.”

“How do I save Ashley?”

“ _You_ can’t.”

“ _Who can?_ Look, lady, I don’t appreciate these cryptic answers—”

Her lip curls indignantly. “There’s nothing cryptic about them, if you would only ask the right ones.”

“What are Blurryface’s weaknesses?”

“He has no corporeal body. He likes to talk. He can’t see the color blue—” “Blurryface is color blind?” The thought strikes Josh as hilarious.

“No. Blue does not exist to him. It is the ultimate camouflage.”

“Good to know, I guess.” Josh pauses, mind racing with any other questions he might ask of this woman with the unearthly knowledge. When he glances over at the hourglass, the last few grains of blue sand fall. A well-manicured hand reaches out to pluck it off of the desk and into the briefcase.

The woman nods. “I wish you well, Josh Dun.”

She stoops down and disappears underneath the desk. When Josh leans down to see if he can spot her feet, there is nothing but carpet. Josh leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees, mashing his temples between his palms. His head feels full to bursting, brimming with knowledge that he isn’t sure is relevant, even if it is fascinating.

One good thing came of it—he knows where to find Ashley.

Logically, part of him knows that this dream has only lasted just over an hour, but it feels like so much more time has passed. He feels like he has aged a hundred years, like there is weariness like a cancer in his heart, metastasized to his bones and his brain and his hope. But beneath it all is the _duty_. When he was three years old and his parents handed him a soft blanket with a baby inside and told him that _you’re a big brother now, Josh, you have to take care of your sister_ , the duty was planted inside of him like a seed, and it has come to fruition.

So he stands up, adjusts his grip on his drumstick, and moves to the large window on the opposite wall. It is flanked by two smaller windows, and when he peers down, he sees that there is the old metalwork for a fire escape scaling the side of the building. Opening the window lets in a gust of frigid air and a whirl of snowflakes. Shivering, he lifts himself through the window (which is a lot harder than it sounds—he really needs to start working out or something) and into the icy outdoors.

This high up, the wind is more intense, blowing his hair and making him squint his eyes. He follows the creaking metal stairs up and up and up past the fourth floor and the fifth. When he arrives at the sixth, he chooses a window and breaks it with the blunt end of his drumstick, knocking away the loose glass from the frame and wriggling through. No time for stealth.

The inside of the sixth floor is as cold as the outside. Snow falls from the ceiling and collects on the ground, crunching under his shoes. His toes begin to numb through the thin soles of his sneakers. When he breathes out, gentle plumes of smoke drift free from his nostrils. The room he has entered is obviously a patient’s room, the bed neatly made up and empty.

There is a noise in the distance. He holds his breath, struggling to listen. Static. Moving carefully, he crosses to the door and opens it, peering out into the hallway. The static grows louder, and there is a noise inside of it.

_Click. Click. Click._

It’s familiar, tickling at the back of Josh’s brain, a sound that he has heard before but cannot seem to name now.

It grows louder as he walks south down the hallway. In the snow is a single set of footprints, half filled in with fallen snow. On either side are long, uninterrupted marks like Blurry has been dragged something along.

Like he's been pushing a hospital bed.

Josh walks down the hallway, matching Blurry step for step. Ahead are double doors, and he has to pause to reach out and press the button that will open them. The clicking and static grow louder as the doors drift apart. His breath comes in little pants, knuckles turning white from clenching his drumstick like it’s his only lifeline between life and death.

The other side is a large room, the purpose of which isn’t obvious to Josh. Machinery and furniture has been moved aside and piled atop each other to make room for the hospital bed that rests in the center. Snow is falling harder here, the flakes larger and heavier. A wall of windows has all of the blinds dragged down and left in heaps on the floor, and standing with his back to Josh is a familiar figure.

“I’m here,” Josh says.

Blurryface turns. In his hand is the source of the clicking: a lighter. He flicks his thumb and it the flame appears, yellow and spitting heat in the icy air. Blurry’s face is slack and empty, combing over Josh’s appearance, settling on the drumstick in his hand before rolling in a graceful display of exasperation.

“I’d hoped for a more intimidating opponent.”

Blurryface crosses to the corner where a radio rests, emitting static. He shuts it off and the room grows quiet. It’s a beautiful scene, almost: the snow, the moonlight streaming through the window. Blurry moves to the center of the room where the bed rests, bends to unlock the wheels, and then turns it creakily so that Josh can see who is laying there.

It’s Ashley. Her eyes are open but unfocused. She has in one of the tubes that Tyler did on the third floor. The blankets on her are covered in snow and sopping wet until it clings to her bony form.

The smell of gasoline is strong, dripping off the drooping corner of the blanket to pool underneath Ashley’s bed.

The lighter in Blurry’s hand makes a lot more sense now.

“What a touching family reunion,” Blurryface murmurs, reaching out to brush some of the hair out of Ashley’s face. She flinches and the sight makes Josh’s fingers clench and unclench with fury and fear.

“Don’t touch her.”

“You’re not in the position to be making demands.”

“I know what you want,” Josh says, impulsively.

Blurryface cocks his head, thoughtfully. “Do you? I want a lot of things. I want to get rid of that pesky _Are you still watching?_ message Netflix uses. I want to ban wearing socks with sandals. I want to use your skin as a throw rug in my bedroom. Are those the things you’re talking about?”

“I know that you want to take control of Tyler and the Treehouse. I know that I’m getting in the way of that—I don’t know how, exactly—but I’m really bad for you. I just want you to know that if you touch her one more time, I’m going to literally devote the rest of my dream-life and all the dream-lives to come making sure that you _never, ever_ get what you want. That’s a promise.”

Blurryface looks stunned; then, he starts to laugh. “That was—stirring. You’re a lot more charismatic when you’re sleeping, Joshua. Isn’t that ironic? Unfortunately, it just so happens that I don’t believe you. You don't get to give the ultimatums. I do, and this is it: if you don’t step out of my way and stay out of Tyler’s dreams, I will dedicate my existence to destroying the minds of you and your loved ones. Ashley is already lost. Abigail is well on her way. That was nearly two birds with one stone—” Josh steps forward.

Blurry flicks on the lighter, holding it out towards Ashley. “Woah. I’d chill out if I were you, or things might get a little toasty in here.”

Gritting his teeth, Josh stops before his next step.

“Good boy, following orders. You remind me of my Spooky friend. I much prefer that version of you, the one that opens his mouth when I say and says yes and no when I say. This version of you isn’t nearly as much fun.”

“I hate to ruin your fun.”

“Then don’t. Disappear. I won’t burn your sister, and I’ll leave you and your family alone. All the people you love will be spared.”

“Tyler. I want Tyler spared, too.”

“Why? What is he to you? A boy in your art class? A friend of three weeks?”

“Yes—all those things, and—” Josh just barely stops himself before blurting it out, but Blurry’s face lights up like Christmas has come early.

He starts to laugh, gentle chuckles and then uproarious guffaws, and really there isn’t anything so _funny_ about it. Blurry wraps an arm around his middle like there’s a stitch in his side from laughing so hard, using the hand with the lighter to wipe at dry eyes. “There is it! It all makes sense now! It’s Tyler! You’re in love with Tyler!”

There is a gentle creak and they both turn to see someone coming through the doors.

It’s Tyler.

“Did somebody say my name?” He says meekly.

#

“What the fuck,” Blurryface snarls, reaching up the hand without the lighter to tangle it in his hair.

“What he said,” Josh adds, jerking a thumb Blurry’s direction. “Tyler what the hell happened?”

Tyler looks like he’s been chewed up and spat out by a pack of ravenous dogs, which Josh supposes is a pretty literal depiction. His shirt hangs on by threads revealing copious amounts of tanned skin that Josh _totally_ isn’t soaking up with his eyes. He is limping heavily, hair mussed way beyond bedhead, jeans torn and splattered with blood.

“Dogs. You owe me a new pair of shoes. Those were my favorite.”

Josh glances down to see Tyler's feet bare except for socks, toes wiggling in the snow. He's so incredulous that he can't even laugh at the sight. “How did you survive?”

Smiling faintly, Tyler pulls a weathered drumstick from the waistband of his jeans. It’s stained in some places with blood and riddled with teeth marks, but the sight of it makes Josh’s heart swell like the wind.

“The elevator started working again, so I went to the third floor. Thank God I had my key and didn’t need to ring for help—”

Blurryface’s lips turn white with the force he’s using to press them together.

“The third floor was empty, but there was this WELCOME JOSHUA DUN sign, which was pretty easy to spot—then the window was open, and I just followed your footprints in the snow.”

“Are you a regular Sherlock Holmes,” Blurryface says. “It’s so touching to see you two reunited, but Joshua and I had some unfinished business. If you could step outside, Tyler, I’d be more than happy to deal with you next.”

“I don’t think so,” Tyler says. “That’s my friend in the hospital bed. Let her go.”

“Does anyone understand subtly, anymore? I’ll be plainer: step out, or I’ll light up little Miss

Ashley Apple Pie like the Olympic torch.”

“Josh—” Tyler says lowly.

“—yes.”

“Now!”

Together, they lunge, but there is too much distance to be crossed. Blurry flicks the lighter— —and goes up in flames.

Josh and Tyler seem to freeze to the floor like statues of ice. Flames engulf Blurry from the lighter in his hand, oozing down his arm and across his body, up to his red beanie and down his legs. There is no scream, no sign of pain. Josh feels the tiniest twinge of triumph in his chest before he realizes that Blurry is collapsing to the floor by Ashley’s bed.

There isn’t even time to call out. The puddle of gasoline goes up in an instant and Ashley is _gone_ and Josh is _screaming_ trying to get to her but Tyler is in the way, pushing against Josh with all his strength until they both slip in the slow and fall. Josh hisses in pain, standing jerkily, but Tyler is already up, arms outstretched to keep Josh from reaching the bed where his sister burns. “Get out of my way.”

“No.”

“I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if you don’t get out of my way.”

“It’s too late—she’s burned. There’s nothing you can do except be burned yourself. Sometimes— we have to let people go! We can’t hurt ourselves trying to save people who are lost!”

Josh pulls back his fist and lets it loose. It connects with Tyler’s temple and makes him fall dangerously close to the ignited hospital bed. Still, the younger boy stumbles to his knees and tackles Josh around the thighs bringing them both down into the snow.

“You want to save her, but you can’t. It’s not your place anymore! She has to save herself. She has to make the choice—and you have to let her choose and be there if she comes out. It’s her choice, but this is your choice too. Be there. Don’t be gone.”

All at once, the will to fight is sapped from him. He collapses into the snow, feeling the wetness seep through the shirt on his back. Palming his eyes, he starts to cry. “I let her down. I told her I’d be there for her. I didn’t make time for her poems. She tried to talk to me, she took care of me when I was sick and I couldn’t make time for her! I was so caught up in myself, and I ignored all of the signs because if I didn’t _see_ them, then I didn’t have to _worry_ about them or think about someone besides myself. This is my fault. It’s my fault Ashley took those pills.”

“Ashley has deep, deep issues. You think you could talk her out of it? Maybe you could, once or twice or three times. But you can’t spend your whole life with her. You can’t be there all the time. Sooner or later, when she’s alone and all those bad thoughts creep in—she’ll try again. Depression, suicidal thoughts—those aren’t things that disappear, no matter how much you love someone and hug them and listen to their poems. Those feelings come back. They always come back. Ashley needs help. You can’t give it to her. That sucks, but it's the truth. All you can do is be here. So do it! Stand up!”

 

Josh sniffs pitifully. “Fine. Fine—don’t yell at me. God.”

“You hit me,” Tyler says, good-naturedly. “Not cool.”

Holding out his hand, Tyler hauls Josh to his feet. They stand there shivering, tears freezing on Josh’s lashes, watching the hospital bed burn.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Tyler whispers over the crackling of the fire. “You’re sick too.”

“I know.”

“You need help. For your anxiety. I don’t know how to tell you that when we’re awake, but I guess I feel braver here. You need help. I feel helpless when you’re having one of your panic attacks.”

“Imagine how I feel,” Josh says.

“I know. It’s not about me, you’re right. But I think that maybe Ashley would feel better about getting help if she saw her older brother doing it too. Set a good example. Do something good for yourself at the same time.”

Lips numb, Josh nods. “Okay. I’ll do it. If she comes out of the fire. I’ll do it.”

Silence except for the crackling of the fire. Something in the bed twitches—Josh’s imagination, surely. But then a figure from the flames is moving, and there is a glimpse of dark hair and an unburnt hospital gown.

Ashley comes out of the flames on shaky legs, tearing the tape from her face, tube pulled away. She holds out her arms and Josh goes to her because she looks to be on the verge of collapsing, and because he’s pretty sure that the last time he hugged his sister before her suicide attempt was years ago when their parents still dressed them in coinciding Halloween costumes. It’s the best hug he’s ever had. No joke. Tyler moves away to give them privacy.

“You came,” Ashley says.

“Duh,” he says, because saying anything else hurts too much. They break apart and she wipes her tears with sooty hands. It makes him laugh.

“Josh,” Tyler calls. “Come here.”

He pulls Ashley’s arm over his shoulder to help her along, stooping down to even their heights. When they reach Tyler, they see that he’s standing next to the fallen corpse of Blurryface still alight with flames. Josh covers his mouth with his hand, wishing he had his trusty bandana to avoid getting a lungful of smoke.

Unlike Ashley, Blurry isn’t moving.

“I think he’s dead,” Josh breathes. His heart feels light, like a bird taken flight. His smile is giddy, and he squeezes Ashley’s arm where it rests over his shoulders. “Tyler—I think he’s really dead. Look at him.”

“Yeah,” Tyler says weakly. “I think you’re right. Let’s get out of here.”

And with just the intent, both boys awaken, sitting up in the dark to share twin looks of triumph and understanding.

#

Across town, Ashley jerks awake in her hospital bed. She’s had a dream—one she can barely remember. There was snow, there were flames, there was pain, and there was strength. Opening her eyes, she sees a figure at her bedside, and her heart is in her throat until her eyes adjust and she sees who it is: her mother, arms crossed, chin drooping towards her chest with exhaustion, eyes resting closed.

“Momma?” She croaks. Her mother jumps, hand clutching at her heart.

“Baby? What is it?”

“I’m so sorry,” Ashley cries. “I’m so sorry for what I did.” “Oh, baby.” They clasp hands.

“Don’t let me go. Don’t let me be gone,” Ashley whispers through her tears, throat thick with them.

“I won’t,” her mother says. She scoots her chair closer to hold Ashley’s hands with both of her own. “We’re going to be okay. We’ll get through this together. Everything will be okay. I promise you.”

And for the first time, Ashley believes it. They sit watching the sun rise over the buildings of Columbus, the sky turning cobalt, pink, yellow, then a clear, bright blue.

#

In a hospital in the dusty mind of a teenager smolders a hospital bed: linens and plastic burned away until nothing but metal remains.

On the floor beside it rests a patch of tile clear from snow, scorched from flame.

In it, where a body should rest, there is no body.

There are no bones.


	22. The Eye of the Storm pt. 1

It doesn’t take long for the triumph of their dream warfare to wear off. Now Tyler lies in the darkness of his bedroom, shivering under the coverlet, listening to Josh’s quiet breaths across the room. His mind plays tricks on him in the dark turning every shadow into something sinister, making the darkness move and flicker like the light of a flame. All around the room, he feels like people are turning their heads to _stare_ at him.

 _Blurryface is gone_ , Tyler thinks, too afraid to move. _He died. He burned. We saw._

But how many times had Josh died in their dreams? How many times had Tyler died as well?

They weren’t any less alive for the trauma.

Very carefully and against his better judgement, Tyler closes his eyes and thinks on the creature that he tries not to acknowledge any more often than he has to. In the back of his mind he likes to picture a cage, one with bars very thickly spaced so that nothing could slip through. He thinks of it like the cage of a rabid animal: bars bent outwards and inwards from rabid teeth and failed escape attempts. _Blurryface_ , he thinks, stepping to the bars and peering in between.

The cage is vacant.

Tyler is not relieved, because a question comes to mind that can’t be easily answered or silenced.

Is the cage empty because Blurryface is gone, or is the cage empty because Blurryface is _free?_

#

There’s something about the sunrise.

Josh watches the sun come up through the Joseph’s kitchen window while sipping a steaming, rich cup of coffee. The sky is a myriad of pinks and oranges and yellows, and it’s hard to believe that this is the same sky which looked so dark and cold the night before. It makes him think that maybe there’s truth in that whole _new day, new chance_ crap. The night has passed. Blurryface has passed. They aren’t out of the woods yet—but at least the woods don’t look so _dark_ anymore.

And even though he’s never been a fan of coffee before, this is the best he’s ever had. Josh might be biased though—the barista was pretty awesome, with eyes just darker than the cream-coffee in his cup.

“Did you have any dreams?” Tyler asks, voice low but deliberate.

“Nah, I slept like a rock,” Josh says. “Do you have the school’s number in your phone, or should I look it up? I need to call to tell them that I won’t be there.”

Tyler stops where he’s scooping dark, fragrant coffee grounds. He’s dressed in their school uniform, long dress-sleeves uncuffed and hanging loosely around his wrists, the hair on his head as unkempt as his eyebrows. He makes a face similar to when Josh called the coffee _coffee_ instead of _espresso_ (but really, it’s all the same to Josh). “You actually don’t need to do that.”

Josh blinks, waiting for Tyler to finish his sentence, holding the coffee mug close to his face to inhale the rich scent and steam even when he’s not drinking it.

“The Dean decided that you could use a few days off.”

“Because of Ashley? That’s—surprisingly nice,” Josh says.

“ _Technically_ it’s a suspension.”

Josh chokes on the coffee he was leisurely about to swallow. He scalds his tongue, the roof of his mouth, his throat. The burn follows all the way down into his gut but he barely notices.

“ _Suspension?_ I thought—you made it seem— _suspension?_ ”

“I talked them out of referring you to the board for expulsion, but Miss Teague wouldn’t let it drop. The Dean had to do _something_.”

Josh groans, long and low, putting his coffee down lest he drop it all over himself. Suspended? He’s never even had a detention. Until this year, he’s never even been kept after class or chastised or _anything_. Josh is good at flying under the radar, and that involves showing up to school on time, doing the work, and not causing problems. It’s a recipe for invisibility.

But this year, it seems like there a spotlight on him. Or a target.

“Just—think of it like a vacation,” Tyler says softly, and if it weren’t for the curl of his lips, Josh would think that he was being serious.

“Yeah. My dream vacay.”

“Look—forget them. At least you’ll get the rest of the week to spend with Ashley. That’s what’s most important,” Tyler says. He glances at the digital clock inlaid in the stove. “I’ve got basketball practice in thirty. Are you sure you’re okay with going up to the hospital this early?”

“My parents have been there all night. I need to see her—” He doesn’t finish, but the truth is that he just needs to make sure that she’s still there. His phone has been clenched in his hands since he woke up, constantly unlocked to check for messages or calls that potentially were missed. Josh needs to see that she’s in one piece, that whatever happened in their dreams last night has broken with the morning’s spell.

“Say no more. Your Uber driver is at your service. Got everything? I think I’ve got some board games you could take. There was this sick puzzle I did in the mental health facility—lions, dude. Lions.”

 

Trusting Tyler’s judgement, Josh leaves the house laden with board games and puzzles and decks of cards. He’s never been one for board games (not since he was a kid, anyway), but if it distracts Ashley from her own head, then he’ll play Go Fish until the cows come home. Whatever it takes; he’ll do it.

 

There is a feeling in the air like today is a Good Day. There’s a hopeful undertone to the honking of the traffic and the warmth of the sunlight that streams between the buildings in downtown Columbus. It feels like a storm came complete with booming thunder, torrential downpour, and ferocious winds. The winds swept up all the dust that had been collecting in their lives, dust swept under beds and beneath rugs so that they didn’t have to look at it and know it was there.

Maybe the dust wasn’t gone, but that at least it was out in the open now.

“Good luck, Josh,” Tyler murmurs when they pull up to the emergency room entrance. “I’m thinking of you and your family, dude. I’ll keep my cellphone on me—text if you guys need anything.”

“Bro.” Josh can’t say more.

“Bro. I know.”

“Good luck at practice.”

“Thanks,” Tyler says smugly. “But I won’t need it.”

With a salute, Tyler pulls away from the curb (not a moment too soon considering an ambulance is arriving, lights flashing but sirens off). Josh salutes back, hoping that his smile doesn’t look as large in Tyler’s rearview mirror as it feels on his face, stretching his cheeks with the effort of restraining it.

Josh ducks inside to make room for the ambulance. He knows where he’s going, avoiding connecting eyes with the nurse behind the check-in desk while slipping past her and down the hallway to the elevators. With his bulging bag of miscellaneous items, wrinkled clothes, and wild curls, he probably looks like a security risk. Nudging the up arrow with his knuckle and watching it begin to glow warmly, he shifts the bag of games and puzzles from one hand to the other.

He wishes that he had his drumsticks, because right now, he just feels vulnerable.

The doors open and he isn’t sure what he’s expecting. Rabid dogs with bits of flesh in their teeth or the charred corpse of Blurryface, reanimated. Whatever he’s expecting isn’t there. When the great steel doors part, there is nothing but a tiny, cramped elevator that leads only to the third floor.

Inside, there is no trapped door in the ceiling. Good riddance.

Josh enters Ashley’s hospital room holding his breath like he’s about to plunge under water. The hospital bed is empty, sheets mussed from use, like Ashley has become a ghost that has dissolved away. It’s a tiny, private room with a pleather loveseat and a closed door across from the bed that he assumes to be a bathroom.

Both of his parents turn to look at him and give him tired smiles. They’re sitting at the loveseat, an end table pulled up close between them, pouring over paperwork.

“Where is she?” Josh asks, sitting the bag down just inside the doorway.

“She’s here,” a voice says from behind him. He nearly jumps out of his own skin turning to see Ashley just behind him. She’s dressed in a one-size-fits-most hospital gown that droops off of her skinny frame, leggings peeking out from underneath. Tucked into the pocket of the gown is a square machine blooming rainbow cords that he can’t even guess the meaning for. She is pulling along an IV drip.

Ashley looks exhausted, but she’s smiling. It’s a real smile. He can tell. Weathered like a ship that’s been out too long as sea, tentative like the first steps on sand, but _real_. “You came,” she whispers. Her eyes squint like she’s trying to remember something but the thought keeps slipping away.

“Duh,” he says. “How’d you sleep?”

She is still squinting, still trying to remember. “Good. I think. I think I had a dream about you.” “Sick.”

A nurse even shorter than Ashley, cheerful, with thick rimmed glasses and pink scrubs helps her get settled into her bed, maneuvering her IV’s so as to not tangle them around her tiny limbs. The nurse’s bright mood is infectious, and the gentle bantering about what’s on television (Grey’s Anatomy reruns, god save him) has them all smiling and laughing.

“How’d it go, baby?” His mother asks.

“How’d what go?” Josh interrupts. He sits in the only other available seat, an uncomfortable hardback chair that looks better suited for a dinner table than a hospital room.

“I had my first therapy session,” Ashley says. “It went good I think. Really good. My doctor—her name is Leanna, and she seems nice.”

“Does she know what she’s talking about?” Their father asks.

“I hope so,” Ashley jokes. “I told her about me, and all of you guys. Abbie and Jordan. How are they?”

“Throwing house parties with grandma,” Josh says. “When I drove by, I saw the strobe lights.

Cops passed out on the lawn. All the good stuff.”

“You drove?” Ashley’s face lights up, eyes narrowed on the singular detail. “You don’t have a car. Who drove you? Tyler?”

“Yes.”

“He was so nice.” The goofy, smothered smile on Ashley’s face says it all, and what kind of world does he live in where he has to compete with his _fifteen year old sister_ for the affections of his _asexual_ crush? His life is starting to sound like one of those bad soap operas his mother watches during the afternoons on her days off. Part of him wants to reach out and squash the hopeful, borderline dreamy look in his sister's eyes, but he feels guilty just for the thought. _You don’t have a chance,_ a dark part of him wants to say.

_And neither do I._

“What did you bring?” His mother asks, nodding towards the bag at Josh’s feet.

“Oh—right. Well _Tyler_ —” and okay, his tone might have been a little too bitter to be passed off as just teasing, but could you blame him? “—suggested that I bring some games and stuff to pass the time. I’ve got puzzles, a deck of cards, oh!” He reaches the bottom of the bag, grabbing a squareshaped box and rattling it. “Checkers!”

Ashley makes a disgusted noise in the back of her throat, squinting at the box and through the box. She shakes her head as if to clear it of cobwebs.

At last, she smiles. “Go Fish?”

#

**From: Tyler**

**How’s Ashley?**

**To: Tyler**

**she’s good. seems excited about therapy.**

**From: Tyler**

**Good. School is lame.**

**To: Tyler are you in class right now?**

**From: Tyler**

**Maybe.**

**Yes.**

**Don’t stop texting though, I might die of boredom.**

**Unless you’re busy, then feel free to stop messaging.**

**To: Tyler**

**i can text. currently beating Ashley at candyland**

**From: Tyler**

**Good big brothers let their little sisters win.**

**To: Tyler**

**she did win. the first three times. i need to maintain some dignity**

**From: Tyler**

**Haha how did I not see that one coming.**

**To: Tyler**

**put your glasses on. i saw you have some in your room but i’ve never seen you wear them. how do you win basketball games when you’re blind?**

**From: Tyler**

**Those glasses were in my desk drawer. Did you go through my stuff when I was showering this morning?**

**To: Tyler i could lie but. i tried them on and i looked good**

**From: Tyler**

**Well I’m glad I hid all of the truly incriminating things**

**To: Tyler**

**you don’t have incriminating things**

**From: Tyler**

**How would you know? I hid them all.**

**In art class now. I’ve only been asked twice if your absence has anything to do with your status as a felon.**

**I said yes. Hope you don’t mind.**

**To: Tyler**

**well i’m not MAD or something. maybe miss teague will leave me alone if she’s afraid of me From: Tyler**

**Keep your fingers crossed. Brb**

**To: Tyler**

**k btw i just beat ashley, we are playing again. best four out of seven.**

**From: Tyler**

**Back. Do you want to spend the night at my place again?**

**Hello?**

**To: Tyler my dad is going home tonight so he can watch my siblings. so. sure**

**From: Tyler**

**Sick. Take your time visiting with your sister and let me know when you want me to get you. We can do the same drill tomorrow morning as this morning. Deal?**

**To: Tyler**

**deal. i’ll bring candyland.**

**From: Tyler**

**SicK As fRiCK**

**Gtg now, French is coming up and I le suck. I’ll see you after school.**

#

Tyler is lying.

He does that more and more often these days, especially to Josh. Little lies to keep Josh from getting hurt. Big lies to protect his own reputation. Even coming clean to the older boy about his past suicide attempt and sexuality had only done so much good. He is keeping secrets from Josh, hiding his fears.

Tyler can’t help that everywhere he goes, he breeds deceit. There is guilt in his heart—but not enough to make him stop. There are things he can’t tell Josh. Not yet.

Like about how everyone already knows what happened to Ashley.

Tyler has been trying to trace the threads of rumors back to the source. Kenzie in English

Composition said that someone in the French Club’s mom worked at the ER and recognized Ashley’s last name, but he interrogates every boy and girl in the French club and no one has a mother, aunt, older sister _anybody_ who works at Grant Medical Center or at a hospital in general. He nearly holds the entire cheerleading team hostage when he catches them talking about it at the lunch table, giving them all the third-degree and making them late for their next period classes, but it’s all _Oh, I heard from Jared. I heard from Da’von. I heard from Astrid._

He spends the whole day looking for who _knows_ like maybe when he finds them, he’ll be able to do something. Wipe their memory, _something_. Ashley is going to have enough trouble transitioning from the hospital back to school, and being in the spotlight is the last thing she needs.

Mostly, Tyler just wants to feel useful.

But there isn’t anything he can do.

From the cage in the back of his mind, is it laughter he hears?

#

When he picks up Josh at the hospital, it’s the happiest he’s seen him in—well—ever, outside of their dreams. There is a peace in him not just visible in the curve of his lips and the relaxation of his shoulders; it’s a deeper feeling that zips across the center console that separates them.

“How did it go?” Tyler asks.

“Great. Honestly. Ashley wouldn’t stop talking about her therapist, and mom and dad said that since I’ve been paying my own insurance all this time, they were still able to afford to have it for the rest of my siblings’. They’ll have to pay some money, but not nearly as much as they might have.” Josh is tapping out a beat on his thigh, index fingers rolling like his jeans are a snare. “God.

That’s such a great feeling. I helped my family.”

The warmth Tyler feels in his chest at Josh’s happiness nearly thaws the icy fear that’s growing there. Nearly.

At Tyler’s house, they eat macaroni and cheese casserole, kicking Zack out of the basement so that they can take turns beating each other at Mario Kart 64. Josh called dibs on Yoshi though, so Tyler blames most of his losses on that fact alone rather than any lack of skills. Everyone knows that Yoshi is the best. The shell makes him aerodynamic or something.

“How was school?” Josh asks while they maneuver the dangerous curves of Rainbow Road. He has a habit of leaning into the turns, nudging shoulders with Tyler. While part of him appreciates the closeness—the molten heat that Josh seems to give off, like there’s a furnace under the stretch of his skin—the majority of him feels anxious at the touch. He leans away, immediately missing the warmth.

“It went fine,” Tyler lies. “How was your suspension? Just like a vacation, right?”

“Totally,” Josh says dryly. He drives Yoshi off the edge of the road and groans, reaching up one hand to rub at his forehead.

“Am I sensing some resentment? You owe me some thanks, dude. I convinced my mom to back off _and_ talked Teague down from recommending your referral to the school board,” Tyler mutters, squinting to focus on the television screen. He always overshoots the next turn—but no, not this time. Princess Peach passes Toad to take second place. Sick.

“Why do you need thanks? Expulsion sounds like an _extended_ vacation. Hey—are you behind me?”

“About to be in front of you, if you go off the road one more time.”

Josh sighs, unpreoccupied with his narrow hold on first place. “What I wrote wasn’t even that bad.”

“It was pretty bad bro. _I pinned back his skin until his rib cage showed. I counted his ribs. They looked bleached white because of the lights above my head._ I forget the next part—but there was this really poetic line about the way my muscles still twitched and wrapped around my bones and the sound my ribs made—”

Josh goes off the road again, shuddering. “Quit it—are you sabotaging me? I get it. It was pretty bad, but was it _expulsion_ bad?”

“No way,” Tyler soothes. It’s only worth it to see Josh’s feathers be ruffled for a moment before the younger boy begins to feel guilty and a little perverse. “Teague was pushing it and the Dean knew that. If my mom had been on board with it though? Who knows.”

“Teague,” Josh mutters darkly. “She’s going to have it out for me when I get back. I know it.”

“You could always drop art.” Tyler doesn’t even know why he _suggests_ that, because the thought of it makes him nauseous. Not having any more classes with Josh. Josh’s empty seat across the room. Finishing their project alone because Josh is in some other class learning all the different ways to conjugate French verbs or how to measure the distance of the stars based on their angle to the earth. It sounds…desolate.

Tyler is suddenly struck by how _lonely_ he was before Josh came into his dreams and his life. How had he never noticed before, the long, empty silences in each of his classes when he never had anyone that he cared to converse with, the blankness of his thoughts when he had nothing to think of except basketball and school work. He’d never noticed the emptiness—not until the spot was occupied. Now the idea of freeing that spot is...painful.

 _What is this?_ he wonders, heart pounding in his chest. _Is this really just friendship?_

But what else could it be?

“Yeah right,” Josh is saying, a quiet warmth overlaying Tyler’s chaotic thoughts. The younger boy isn't even listening. “And leave you all alone with our project? That’d be selfish, dude. That’s half mine. It’s a child. I’m not paying child support—”

“Bathroom,” Tyler says, dropping the controller and unfolding his long legs from underneath him where he’d been curled up on the couch. He can hear the enthusiastic music of the video game and the plaintiff cries of Josh, but they’re all background noise. The downstairs bathroom isn’t an option—too close to the source of his anxiety. Bounding up two flights of stairs, Tyler doesn’t find peace until he’s in _his_ bathroom.

For extra safety, he gets into the shower and sits on the dry porcelain floor. In the tiled oasis, his thoughts don’t feel so loud.

Tyler knows the difference between being sexually attracted to someone and wanting to date them. He’s read the articles and watched videos on YouTube and talked it out with some superkind ace and aro people in the group chat that he first Came Out to. He knows the definitions —but he has never experienced either desire. Zack’s words echo in his head, that Josh is _different_.

It doesn’t matter if Josh is different to _Zack_ though. Is Josh different to _Tyler?_ And the answer is an obvious yes—Tyler would be blind and in denial to say otherwise. Knowing Josh and hanging out with him has shown that all of the friendly acquaintances that Tyler has had up to now were just that: friendly acquaintances. Josh is different. He’s the best person Tyler knows: kind, nonjudgmental, funny. All of the qualities that he finds worthwhile exist in the older boy—but it’s more than that. They have a connection, one that Tyler feels more and more even when they aren’t sleeping and sharing dreams.

Tyler thinks about Josh nearly all the time when they aren’t together, and he has to forcibly stop himself from mentioning the other boy half a dozen times at the dinner table because every time he does, Zack gives him this _look…_

But Tyler has always considered himself to be aromantic. It’s a nice thought: having a partner, someone to share experiences with and potentially forge a life together with—but there has never been anyone with whom he could see _sharing_ parts of himself with. Then how is it that he’s already started sharing parts of himself with Josh without even knowing it? He’s willing to acknowledge the thought that maybe he isn’t aromantic, but (while he knows that sexuality and romantic orientation aren’t required to exist simultaneously) the idea of sex and romance has always gone hand-in-hand to him. Without one, he had put away the idea of the other.

Even if he is romantically interested in Josh, is he _sexually attracted_ to Josh?

God, how was he supposed to decide when he’s never felt that way about anyone before? There isn’t some sort of scientific test he can subject himself to. Life couldn’t possibly be so simple. Of course—there are _ways_. Tyler’s sexuality doesn't define his sex drive, and he gets off as much as any teenager (according to Google). Usually when he touches himself, there’s no thought in mind except the pleasurable experience. Focusing on sensation (the slick friction of his hand, the warmth of his skin combined with the cool air of his bedroom or the humidity of his shower, the pent up energy in his pelvis like a bow pulled taut and prepared for release) is all he’s ever done or needed to do.

Could he think of Josh? Just the idea in his head makes his face red. He feels shocked at the thought, like someone has reached out and turned the shower on, freezing cold water beating down on his scalp. There’s no way he could do that—could do _that_ while thinking of Josh. Is he repulsed? He might _be._ It’s hard to tell through the thirty different layers of awkwardness.

How can he even be thinking these things when Josh is downstairs waiting for him? Josh’s spirit is vulnerable after his sister’s suicide attempt, and now Tyler is contemplating taking it for a mental tumble-in-the-hay? For _science?_

The larger repercussions are ones he doesn’t want to think of. His sexuality and romantic orientation are the only things about himself that he’s ever felt sure of. Finding those terms, realizing and being able to name those parts of himself was the most freeing, comforting feeling he’s ever had. Knowing that the things he felt—and didn’t feel—were normal changed his life and his perspective of himself. Some people don't like the restriction of terms, but Tyler does. It's like the comforting sensation of a tie around his neck, like the safe box of his tiled shower. It's him. It's his identity.

Without it, who _is_ he?

Tyler steps out of the shower. He flushes the toilet that he didn’t use and washes his hands longer than necessary, scrubbing between his knuckles and under the nails. When the soap slips down the drain, he hopes that it takes whatever he might feel for Josh with it.

#

“What do you think will happen tonight?” Josh asks. They’re stripping down the bedsheets in Tyler’s room because his mother is doing laundry. All over the house, children and indulgent husbands are pushing piles of clothes and bedspreads to the hall for his mother to organize and wash. “Dream-wise. Blurry is gone now. Maybe we won’t dream together anymore.” That thought shouldn’t hurt as much as it does.

“I don’t know,” Tyler says quietly, hating the gentle warble of his voice. “I guess we will have to just wait and see.”

It takes both of them to put clean fitted sheets on the beds, but they both end up in Tyler’s while he puts on Netflix. They lounge with their backs against the wall balancing cups of icy milk between their knees and taking Oreos from the package that rests between them. Tyler _definitely_ doesn’t choose a Netflix horror original that he’s seen before so he can spend the whole time watching Josh’s facial expressions. That’d be weird.

“If my favorite character dies, I’ll never forgive you,” Josh mumbles around a mouthful of cookie.

“Good to know,” Tyler says.

Josh spends the rest of the two episodes they get through coming up with ridiculous plot twists. His laughter and optimism are infectious. The fact that not even Tyler’s obviously dark mood can even touch the glow of his happiness warms him. When he squints, he imagines that he can see a different Josh altogether than the one he originally knew: a Josh who hadn’t been stifled by trials but had blossomed, whose sanguinity could be a beacon through any storm. A Josh like the one he knows in his dreams.

But there’s no use being sad for versions of people who don’t exist.

#

Then it is evening and the lights are shut off with nothing but the dimmest glow coming through Tyler’s bedroom window. It’s impossible to tell if Josh is asleep or just very still, and there’s something about being in the dark, in his bed, that reminds him of his earlier thoughts in the bathroom. His face burns. How can he think about that when Josh is fifteen feet away? What is _with_ him lately?

Closing his eyes, he lets his thoughts drift towards a sobering subject: the empty cage in his head. All the embarrassment evaporates. Just the thought of Blurryface is like a leech feeding on him, sucking away the emotion and blood and bone and marrow until nothing but B-L-U-R-R-Y-F-AC-E remains.

The cage is as empty as it was before. Tyler walks around it, subjecting it again to his keen eye. There is a place where the bars have been pushed apart, and it looks nearly wide enough for him to slip his body through. Glancing around to make sure there’s no one sneaking up on him, he turns sideways and presses himself between the bars. It’s tight—

But no, he can’t fit, and if he can’t fit _in_ , then there’s no way that Blurryface could have slipped _out_.

“You’re really gone, aren’t you?” Tyler whispers.

There is no answer, not even the hint of an answer.


	23. The Eye of the Storm pt. 2

Tyler _dreams_.

When his eyes open, he’s no longer staring at the dark ceiling of his family’s largest bedroom. The surface underneath him has transformed from the soft plushness of his mattress into unforgiving plywood that scrapes against his skin through the tatters of his shirt. The heat is stifling, sweat beading on his arms and forehead. He is curled up on the floor like he used to sleep when he was a child, but there is no stiffness in his limbs when he unfurls as if he has only been resting there for a moment.

Across the room, Josh is already awake. He’s sitting with his back resting against a wall that contains a portrait of _himself_. One of his legs is propped up, foot flat on the floorboards, arm up and leisurely resting against it—only there’s nothing leisurely about Josh’s expression. The lines around his mouth, that wax when he smiles, are smoothed away, lips gently downturned. His eyes seem old and tired.

For a moment, it is like Blue-Josh has come to life.

“What’s wrong?” Tyler whispers through the stillness of the heat and the silence.

“This is the first treehouse. Little Blurry died here—right where you’re sitting.”

Tyler gets shivers. He knows that ‘Little Blurry’ is just a figment of both of their imaginations, but the realistic aspect of the dreams they share makes it hard to be objective. Under his palms is the rough texture of unpolished wood threatening to give him splinters, and a bead of sweat rolls down the back of his shirt, tickling him. The physics are so _real_ , and the emotions feel real too.

He’s sitting where a boy _died_.

And Josh had to experience it firsthand.

“I’m sorry,” Tyler says.

“It’s alright,” Josh says gently. “There’s something about this place that makes it hard for me to be upset. I’m sad—I miss him, which seems a little silly, but we talked, you know? We made plans. I was trying to think of what to get him for Christmas, of whether we could come up with a costume for him to wear at Halloween. He missed so much sitting in this Treehouse. I know that he’s gone, but it’s like my head doesn’t know that sometimes. When I woke up here, for a minute I thought that maybe he was just in the crawlspace looking for a different color paint or for a book he wanted to read to me.”

The way that Josh is speaking about a fictional dead boy shouldn’t have Tyler jealous—and maybe _jealous_ isn’t the right word. Tyler doesn’t want to keep Josh from mourning, but the poetry in the way he’s talking—the sad, sad poetry—it’s something beautiful. When Tyler dies, he hopes that someone will talk that way about him, will forget for silly moments that he is gone and then remember and _mourn_. Sometimes, he gets so upset thinking about the people who might not grieve for him that he wishes he could live forever, looking for the thing that will make him worth remembering, worth missing.

“Mostly, I’m just antsy,” Josh continues. He drums his fingers: pinky, ring, middle, pointer all in a row and again and again. “Part of me wants vengeance. Only I had my vengeance—Blurryface burned up. Then why don’t I feel satisfied?”

“I don’t know. Maybe there’s no peace in vengeance.”

Josh smiles sadly. “I guess not.”

Tyler stands and walks around the room. He can barely remember the first treehouse—he remembers Blue-Josh very well ( _too well_ , he thinks sadly. Maybe he does know a little something about the poetry of grief), but it was so dark that night that there wasn’t any chance to take in the physical aspects of the treehouse.

Honestly, there isn’t much to see: it’s a wood, nearly square room made of crudely hammered planks of wood, but the inside has been whitewashed. The tree trunk that pierces the center of the house from floor to ceiling is of chipping, mocha-colored bark. While the rope ladder is there leading upwards, the trapdoor in the floor and in the ceiling have been boarded over. If he needed any more proof that Blurryface was gone, that was it. There was no need to go further in the Treehouse. All was well.

In the corner are pots of paints, mason jars with unscrewed lids. The paint is (eerily) still wet. The paintings on the walls capture his attention and he lingers over them. The one of Josh is larger than life size, the right arm slathered with paint of every color it seems—but the obvious feature is a great black mustache that curls on his upper lip.

“Good look for you,” Tyler says, reaching up to tap it. His fingertips come away dampened with the ghost of black paint.

“Thanks,” Josh says slowly.

“But what is this?” Tyler gestures to the other painting that takes up nearly the rest of the wall. It is a large shelving unit: a bookcase judging by the height of each compartment. Only instead of being filled with books, it is filled with boxes and containers of every size and color and substance scattered haphazardly along the shelves.

It’s rather boring, to be honest.

“I’m not sure,” Josh says. “Little Blurry painted it. He didn’t even know what it was.”

“Weird,” Tyler muttered. “Well, we have three other blank walls. How do you feel about getting a little messy?”

#

It feels a little odd to occupy space that has been so obviously occupied. The crawlspace Josh mentioned is full of games and dust: games a child would like, with colorful pieces and not much strategy or thought required. It’s the sort of stuff he would play with his little siblings (and only when forced to) so they paint instead, holding warm mason jars two-to-a-hand and inhaling the sharp scent of the paints.

Tyler has the red. He’s painted blossoming roses. The room needs something beautiful besides the picture of Josh. He blinks hard at the thought, almost feeling guilty. But why should he? It isn’t a secret that Josh is good-looking: he has rich eyes, finely shaped eyebrows, a noble nose—and _good God_ is Tyler going on and on or does it just _feel_ that way? There’s nothing wrong with acknowledging a fact. Josh is handsome. Fact. There’s nothing more to it.

Letting his eyes drift to the older boy, he sees that Josh is painting a Christmas tree. Josh is much more particular about his paint colors, scrounging in the crawlspace for empty mason jars so that he can mix his own tints. He has a way of combining the childishly simple colors into much more complex hues: green, black, and just a _hint_ of navy to capture the shade of evergreen; yellow-white to make the popcorn that he uses the flat of his knuckle to smear into place. Tyler’s never seen a tree in real life that had strings of popcorn like garlands (that seems like something he only sees on old black and white movies), but it gives it a festive touch. A _Josh_ touch.

“You haven’t made the star yet,” Tyler says, pointing out the empty space at the tree’s tip. Where the Star of Bethlehem should be is vacant.

“Nothing feels right,” Josh says.

Tyler hums. “Running low on red paint.”

“Go get the blue—it’s full.” After he finishes his sentence, his entire body spasms like he’s been struck by lightning. “ _Blue!_ God, I’m an idiot. I can’t believe I forgot to tell you about that.”

“Tell me about what?”

“My meeting? You know, with the hospital administrator? Only, I don’t think that she worked for the hospital.”

The lightning strikes twice, hitting Tyler this time. He feels the electricity in his gut and in his brain, remembers the stern, no-nonsense woman he’d awoken to find sitting at his desk clutching the wrist watch. That meeting had felt so important (perhaps a part of him had even known that it was more important than Ashley, that they could go to the ends of the dream-earth and not save Ashley if she didn’t save _herself_ ). With their waking, the memory had slipped away from him.

“Tell me about it,” Tyler urges. “Every little detail—word for word, if you can.”

So Josh tries. He’s so animated, hands gesturing and drops of paint splattering from his fingers. Time has passed which makes the memories fuzzier, more like piecing together a puzzle than remembering a recollection. Sometimes, Josh has to backtrack entirely because he ‘missed a part’ or to describe the hilarious irritation the woman expressed via every little part of her from the jaunt of her glasses to the rigidity of her posture.

Blurryface can’t see blue. Blurryface wants to take over Tyler’s body and the Treehouse (“Oh?” Tyler had said, vaguely. “Well, he can try.”)—and somehow Josh stood in the way of that. Intriguingly—there is a _higher power_ , which reminds Tyler of _God_ , only there’s no way that God is in a Treehouse in their head. The entire conversation was a mix of ups and downs: fear, to know that Blurryface had been out to get Josh (and himself, to ‘assume control’ of him, whatever that meant) but, also relief to know that there has been someone on their side all this time.

“I guess none of it matters with Blurryface gone,” Tyler says. “You know, part of me thought that it was too good to be true. I’ve been dealing with Blurryface for years. I never really thought that I could get rid of him. It seems too good to be true, like a dream.”

“It is a dream,” Josh says, flashing his straight, white teeth. Even the shape of them makes Tyler feel the stirring of happiness inside of himself, like butterfly wings against the inside of his stomach.

“A dream come true,” Tyler says, throat thick with some unnamable emotion.

#

There is only so much that they can paint before they’re running the tips of their fingers around the rims of the jars and getting splinters from trying to smooth out excess paint on the plywood and make it last. When the paints are gone but the dream shows no sign of ending, they sit cross-legged on the floor, reclining against opposite walls and talking.

“Sophia messaged me since I—you know—walked out and then didn’t ever come back.”

Just the name sets his teeth on edge. Sophia McDowell. He’s never thought about her twice beside the minimal interaction that was guaranteed with him being on the basketball team and her being on the cheerleading squad. They were on Junior Homecoming Court together last year, but they hadn’t done more than the obligatory arm-in-arm pomp and circumstance. There was something inherently irritating about her.

Mostly about how she kept popping up in Josh’s life.

Tyler blinks away the haze of his irrational irritation. Something about what the other boy has said makes bells go off in Tyler’s head. “Wait—she messaged you? When?”

“Early this morning mostly, after you dropped me off at the hospital.”

“What did you tell her about why you were gone?” Tyler asks, his eyes narrowed.

“I told her that Ashley had had an accident and that I wouldn’t be there this week.”

And all of the puzzle pieces seem to fall into place. Sophia must be behind the rumors about Ashley. Not often does Tyler experience fury, but when he does, it seems to sweep him up with it: fists clenching, teeth grinding, a red haze over his vision. He feels nearly possessed with it, thinking thoughts that barely feel like his own. That heinous, pom-pom waving, duplicitous _bitch_. Had she been at the table when he’d interrogated the other girls on the squad? Now that he thought about it, she hadn’t been there.

There will be repercussions.

There will be vengeance. Tyler would never harm anyone, but as the star player on the basketball team, he _does_ have some say about who is and isn’t on the cheerleading squad (especially since he’s throwing a heck of a birthday party for the coach’s 54th birthday, turn up).

Josh, oblivious to Tyler’s seething fury, continues on: “She’s really persistent about me helping her with the fricking bells though. I told her I wouldn’t make it to our next tutoring session and she wants to come home with me. She wants to come to my house, that is.”

Tyler scoffs. “No way. You’ve got more important things to be giving your attention.”

 _Like you?_ a little voice in his head whispers.

 _Maybe,_ Tyler thinks. So what if he can’t decide if he could ever make out with Josh (woah), but he’s Josh’s friend. Maybe his best friend. Maybe a dinner partner and fellow Player 2 at Mario Kart. That should stand for more than any cheerleader Josh has known for a week.

 _And Ashley_ , the voice reminds gently. _Josh has more important things to be giving his attention. Like Ashley._

Right.

“I know,” Josh says. “But I made her a promise that I’d help. Jerry’s practical exams are coming up and she’s going to have to play an entire song in front of the class. She butchered 'Ba-Ba Black Sheep' and 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' and all of those other songs about cutesy farm animals. It won’t hurt to take an hour of my Wednesday and Friday to help her out.”

Tyler says nothing. His mother raised him that if he didn’t have anything nice to say, then he shouldn’t say anything at all, but _god_ it’s never been so hard until now. Clenching his hands together tightly in his lap, he leans his head back to rest against the treehouse wall, staring up at the plywood ceiling where there are cracks letting in the sunshine.

“You don’t like Sophia,” Josh says. It’s not a question, but it sounds sad. “Do you—do you think that she’s using me?”

“Yes,” Tyler mutters darkly. He can’t meet Josh’s eyes. It doesn’t make it any harder to lie—but it does make him feel guiltier, especially when he hears Josh’s breath catch. Worst of all is that Tyler doesn’t need to see the other boy’s face: it’s like there’s a picture of it behind his eyes. When he lets them slip closed, he can imagine the uncertainty, the hurt and the sadness in the slant of Josh’s eyes and lips.

“I mean, I guess it crossed my mind,” Josh says quietly. “A girl as pretty as her, as popular as her—what would she want with _me_ except for my help in music. I mean, she was on freaking Homecoming Court last year. I went to the library and looked through the yearbooks and saw the pictures. She’s like, the top of the pyramid. Literally—you know, when all the girls hold each other up with their palms and—yeah, you get it. I would have helped her anyway, though. She didn’t need to flirt or give me her number or anything.”

“I’m not trying to hurt your feelings,” Tyler says. “But girls like Sophia are good at manipulating people to get what they want. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Do you really believe that?” Josh asks. “I thought that you of all people believed that stereotypes aren’t always true.”

Tyler exhales testily. He doesn’t need Josh turning his own philosophy on its head to poke it full of holes. He doesn't need to be faced with his flawed logic, his obviously faulty reasoning. Josh likes Sophia, Sophia likes Josh, and Tyler doesn’t like it one bit.

But then a thought hits him: he’s not just being _selfish_ , he’s being illogical. Maybe there could be some validity in his unnatural loathing of Sophia and Josh’s growing relationship if Tyler wanted Josh for himself—but he doesn’t. Of course not. It would be selfish if he were driving a wedge between them so that he could slip into the space and occupy her place in Josh’s heart and life, selfish and reprehensible, but reasonable.

To keep them apart, to keep Josh from potentially finding happiness—and for what reason? No reason? That…that was a crime. That wouldn’t make sense.

It hurts him, but he swallows his irrational pride. It takes like poison slipping back down his throat. “You know what? I’m sorry. You’re totally right. Sophia seems really nice, and I’ve known her for longer than you have. She is a—good person and doesn’t deserve a bad rap. For what it’s worth, I really don’t think she’s using you. I—I don’t know why I said that.”

He lets his eyes drift to Josh, and the relief on the older boy’s face is about as painful as it is pleasurable. Tyler doesn’t feel better, but at least he doesn’t feel so guilty. Sometimes, taking the high road really sucks.

“I think when things settle down, I’m going to call her. It’s not often that often that girls like _her_ look at guys like _me_."

“Hey, don’t say that,” Tyler says. He points a finger, mockingly stern so that maybe Josh won’t take his next words as seriously as he means them. It’s easier to deliver the truth when it’s presented as a joke. “You’re great, Josh—like, the best. You’re a ten, easily. Ten out of ten.”

Josh’s goofy smile erases everything else, all the guilt and the bitterness and the fear and the doubts. “Thanks, dude. You too. Twelve out of ten.”

“Twenty out of ten, Josh.”

“ _Fifty._ ”

Tyler laughs, giggles without having to hide the pitch or his teeth or anything because he trusts Josh and in that moment in the Treehouse, all is right in the world and in his mind.

#

Wednesday morning finds Josh waking up to the buzzing of Tyler’s phone’s alarm across the room.

He cracks his eyes, soaking in the last pleasant remnants of their dream together even as he hears Tyler’s quiet groan, the groping of his hand on his nightstand searching for the offensively loud phone.

Spending the night talking with Tyler in a place where he feels brave and confident and peaceful? It was the best dream he’s ever had. The warmth of it has settled deep in his bones, and he knows that today will be a Good Day. Nothing can touch this feeling.

Tyler gets up across the room, bare except for plaid boxers. Josh looks away to be polite the same way he does in the locker room. None of the boys at school know he’s bisexual, but he can’t help but feel like he should take extra precautions to respect their privacy anyway. It makes him feel less weird—less guilty.

“Rise and shine,” Tyler says, voice croaky with sleep.

“Thanks for the wake-up call.”

“I’m going to make more espresso. Should I make you some?”

“Coffee sounds great.”

Tyler’s sigh is worth it, watching him tug on a pair of sweats that rest low on his narrow hips. Shirtless, he sneaks out through his bedroom door and all sound of him disappears as he creeps down the hallway. Will he make the first cup for Josh, like he did yesterday? There’s only one way to find out. Stumbling out of the comfortable bed, Josh shrugs on the clothes he brought with him to wear to the hospital and follows after him.

#

Ashley has already returned from therapy by the time Tyler drops Josh off at the hospital. She seems thoughtful, a little melancholic. Her face brightens considerably when she sees her brother in the doorway, and he would have to be blind not to notice the relief in his mother’s shoulders at her smile.

“How was therapy?” He asks tentatively.

She shrugs. “Good. Just more talking.”

“Wait until she makes you run the obstacle course.”

Ashley grins at the joke. “How’s Tyler?”

Josh rolls his eyes. “He’s _fine_. I was thinking—want to do a puzzle today?”

“Sure! In the closet over there is where the nurse put your stuff last night after you left. I was looking at them, though, and there was this awesome one of lions—”

“Darn,” Josh says, slow, wheels turning in his head. “Tyler actually said that one is missing a ton of pieces. Let’s do a different one.”

“Oh,” Ashley says, the skin between her eyebrows furrowing. “Um—sure. You pick.”

Josh chooses one of a castle on a seaside. It’s only a little hundred-piece puzzle, easy enough to fit on the end table. He helps Ashley move to the loveseat, making sure not to tangle her IV and even offering her his arm because her legs are shaky from lying in bed for three days straight. They spread out all of the pieces and turn them face up before they begin to divide them from edge-pieces to center-pieces.

His mother clears her throat until he looks up towards where she is watching from across the room, seated in the uncomfortable dining-chair. “Josh, I need you to spend the night at home tonight. Your father is coming to stay with Ashley so I can get some rest in a real bed. I work tomorrow, early. Can you get your brother and sister dressed and on the bus for school?”

A small part of him resents not being able to spend the night with Tyler again, but it is easily squashed. He’s already spent more time with Tyler than he ever dreamed he would (and god, those early days of stalking the basketball player wondering things like whether he twirled or cut his spaghetti or how he might pronounce Josh’s _name_ seemed so far away). It’s time for Josh to be back home, helping his family, taking on responsibilities like the good son he wants to be—like his family needs him to be.

Not to mention, Sophia is coming over around four.

“I’ll be there. Don’t worry about it,” Josh says.

#

Tyler almost manages to control himself. _It’s for science_ , part of his brain says. _It’s a bad idea,_ another part says. It’s so foreign to have two voices in his head that are both him, neither curled with the maliciousness of Blurryface—foreign, but refreshing. In the end, he goes with his gut instinct and confronts Sophia in between their first and second-period classes.

She is a pretty girl: eyes wide and bright, teeth clean and straight with that little gap all the models on the cosmetic commercials on TV seem to have whenever he’s not watching Netflix and watching cable instead. Her expression brightens when she sees him (and why shouldn’t it? They’ve been playing on/cheering for the same team for four years now) before drifting into a more timid expression.

“Everything okay, Ty?” She asks carefully.

“Tyler,” says Tyler. “I’m trying to get rid of the whole ‘Ty’ thing.”

“Oh—right. Okay. What’s up?” She shifts her books from arm to another, eyes flickering past Tyler to someone else down the hallway who has called her name. She beams, waving as much as she can while ladened with the literal burden of the American school system.

“You’ve heard the rumors about Ashley Dun?”

Sophia immediately frowns. “Yeah. That she tried to kill herself? That’s terrible. So sad. I was going to ask Josh about it later when I go over—”

“God, no, don’t do that, that’s a terrible idea—”

“Do you think? I just—”

Tyler narrows his eyes, flickering his gaze from her furrowed brow to her sad eyes, gentle frown, and hunched shoulders. He tries to block out whatever she is saying: her words could lie, but faces almost never can. Unfortunately, she seems sincere. If he had taken care of who started the rumors about Ashley _and_ taken care of his Sophia-Josh problem all in one, it would have been so convenient.

Only he isn’t supposed to be getting rid of Sophia anymore.

Yeah, right.

“Who did you hear it from, though?” Tyler asks, interrupting her rambling.

She huffs a little, unimpressed with not being able to finish her thought. “Didi.”

Danielle. Tyler had already interrogated her though, and all of the names she’d given had led him into a big circle of he-said-she-said that left him feeling equal parts frustrated and fearful. His relationship with Josh aside, Ashley is most important. Coming back to an environment where such a vulnerable part of her is known by the entire student population and is potentially being  _mocked?_

It’s one of Tyler’s nightmares. He can’t let it happen to someone so important to Josh.

“Thanks for nothing Sophia,” Tyler murmurs, barely recognizing the uncouth person who seems to have possessed control of his brain and verbal capabilities.

“Rude,” she mutters under her breath as he walks by. Tyler hears but lets her get away with it.

His mind feels like it’s a million miles away.

#

Josh sits on the couch in his basement in his best pair of torn jeans and a sleeveless shirt, not minding the goosebumps that bloom on his arms. It’s a fine balance between wearing clothes that look distressed as opposed to uncaring, but it’s a look that he thinks he’s perfected after a few Google searches and taking a pair of scissors to his most frayed pair of black jeans. He’s posed to be attentive but not obnoxiously so, trying to make a decent impression on the beautiful girl he has alone in his basement, though he doesn’t think it matters because Sophia seems really fucking nervous.

The bell set is set up just in front of his drums. The silver glints in the overhead fluorescent lights. Fluorescent lights can be very unflattering (according to his mother who comes home griping about them after every clothes shopping trip she goes on), but Josh is pretty sure that ' _unflattering'_ is impossible for Sophia.

She’s squeezing the mallets so tightly that he can see the whites of her knuckles.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I get stage fright.”

“You’re a cheerleader.”

“Yeah, well, I’m _good_ at that,” she laughs, switching both mallets to one hand to push her hair behind her ear. Today it is in gentle, beachy waves. “But I suck at the bells.”

“You don’t suck—you’ve played this a million times.”

“Yeah, but now I’m imagining how it will go in front of _everyone_ and oh _god_ it just makes me sick! I feel like I’m going to throw up or something, and my hands get so sweaty—what if I accidentally throw one of the mallets? What if I poke somebody’s eye out?”

Josh is struggling to keep a straight face. There’s nothing funny about her anxiety, but sometimes the things that anxiety makes them think _are_ funny.

He wishes that he were in his dreams where he always seemed to have something to say, where he didn't feel any social anxiety and didn't doubt himself. What would dream-Josh do?

“Maybe this will help,” Josh says, slowly, mind whirring. “Feeling sick and stuff, feeling nervous when you’re about to do something? That’s part of your fight or flight instincts. No kidding. We just learned about it in physical science class a few weeks ago. It’s like, ingrained in your brain. Do you get really shaky, too?" he waits for a response, "—yeah, I figured. Your body is getting flooded with all this adrenalin because your brain is making it feel like you’re about to do something really scary. Adrenalin is sick. There are all these stories in the news about people who can, like, bench press cars off of their babies because the adrenalin makes them crazy strong. Your brain is getting ready to do some crazy things that shouldn't be possible. If the same stuff that could help you bench press a car is flooded your brain, imagine how easily you can play 'Mary Had A Little Lamb.'”

And though he’d never consider himself to be a motivational speaker (and he definitely doesn’t have a way with words, not like Tyler, not to mention that he’s nearly positive that  _none_ of that made any fucking sense), he can tell by the way she bites her lip to avoid smiling and the way she grips the mallets more securely that she feels _better_. She nods, determined, meeting his eyes.

“Okay. I’ll do it. I _can_ do it.”

She does it. Sometimes she comes down a little too hard on the notes (but obviously she makes effort to keep a consistent volume, which is all that will count to Jerry), a little jittery sometimes, but performing an easily recognizable rendition of Mary Had a Little Lamb. When she finishes and the last note is ringing out, dulled by the thick walls of the basement, the look in her eyes in wondrous, like she has just made a miraculous scientific discovery.

He goes to open his mouth to congratulate her, but she is scrambling around the bell set looking a little like she is going to _attack_ him, throwing herself across his lap and wrapping her tiny arms around his neck to tangle her fingers knuckle-deep in his curly hair and kiss him soundly.

And _woah_ it’s been a minute since he’s kissed anyone (and by a minute he means months, since before his move to Columbus), but when a partner is as heated as Sophia is, it’s just like riding a bike again: she has the softest lips and the sweetest tongue. When he reaches up a hand to cup her jaw, the skin under his thumb as he strokes her cheek is the smoothest he’s ever felt, and he definitely is not craving the sting of stubble, _definitely_ not, because when he’s kissing Sophia, there can’t be any room for Tyler in his head. There just can’t be.

Their kissing winds down, and the less heated it gets, the more room there is for him to second guess himself—too much tongue? Is his hair greasy under her fingers? Is he getting _hard?_

The answer is a fundamental _yes_ , and it’s the only thing that makes him pull away. She gasps for breath softly, and the look of her (lips dark and gently swollen from use, cheeks flushed like she’s just applied her blush, eyes closed like she’s just had the best kiss of her fucking life) does nothing to diminish his arousal. He leans his head back until it rests on the back of the sofa and stares at the ceiling. Nothing sexy about _ceilings_.

“Why’d you stop?” She asks gently.

Upstairs, the front door opens and he hears the thud of Abbie and Jordan’s footsteps, the muted sound of his younger brother’s voice.

“Oh,” she laughs. “Sorry.” Shifting (Josh assists her _very_ carefully to avoid brushing her against his waning erection because that also does very little to help the situation, believe it or not) to the seat next to him, she touches her jaw where Josh’s hand had been, eyes far away like she can’t believe he’s touched her or something equally insane. “Was that okay?”

“Yes,” Josh says simply.

“Just like bench pressing a car,” she murmurs.

Josh holds up a weak thumbs up, still a little winded, grinning when she laughs and struggling not to feel guilty. There’s no logical reason for him to feel guilty about kissing someone—he hasn’t betrayed Tyler. Tyler isn’t even interested in him. Tyler _can’t_ be.

But guilt, like most other emotions, doesn’t take orders from logic.

#

That night before he dreams, Tyler revisits the cage. It’s becoming a ritual, one that he takes part in multiple times during the day and evening and any other moment when he finds himself quiet and still. He lets his mind drift to the prison at the back of his head. Nothing is ever different.

 _Are you sure he’s gone?_ a voice whispers in his head: DOUBT.

Tyler presses against the hole in the bars, struggling to fit through. Maybe if he tenses his stomach and lets all the air out of his lungs. For a moment, he starts to slip through—but then he is stuck and will not move another inch further into the cage. There’s no way that Blurryface could have escaped. None.

But he feels no relief, especially not when he makes it to the treehouse first. Josh is curled up in the corner like a cat, mouth gently puckered from where his cheek is smooshed into his hand. The sight of him—chest bare, tummy gently crinkled where the older boy is curled in on himself, errant curls and the edge of Josh’s jaw—stirs something in Tyler. Affection, definitely, but something else? What is that? That feeling in the pit of his stomach? Whatever it is, Tyler doesn’t want it. He wants the simplicity of apathy, because feelings are _doomed_.

On the trapped door above, something catches his eye. It is still planked over and closed off, put a piece of paper is taped there. Written in great blocky letters ( _Is that my handwriting?_  he questions, frantic) there is a message.

**CLOSED FOR EXTERMINATIONS. :)**

A message from whoever runs the Treehouse or from someone else? It’s impossible to know. Tyler takes down the sign, tears it into pieces and just manages to reach the window across the treehouse and shove them away before Josh stirs awake in the corner.


	24. The Eye of the Storm pt. 3

 “A date,” Tyler repeats slowly like he hasn’t made Josh say it three times already, like it isn’t reverberating off of the inside of his brain like a bullet gone off in close-quarters. He tries to imagine it (because he hates himself just enough to wish this pain upon himself): Josh dressed up nicely in dark-wash jeans and a button down, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, hair combed. Sophia in a beautiful summery dress just too revealing for the chilling weather. Will Josh give her his jacket? Will he open the restaurant door for her and pull out her chair? Will Josh kiss her before he gets out of her car at the end of the night?

Not that they haven’t done plenty of that already, from the way Josh makes it sound. ‘Making out.’ That suggested tongues, right? Tyler thinks of the moist cavern of Sophia’s mouth and shudders. The idea is repulsive, but Josh must have loved it judging by the goofy, blissed out look on the older boy’s face.

And now they’re going on a _date_.

“Congratulations,” Tyler says through numb lips.

“Thanks,” Josh says. “It’s my first date in—well—a long time. I’m not even sure if I remember what to _do_ on a date.”

“I’m sure it will come back to you,” Tyler mutters.

Josh frowns. “Tyler. Are you okay, dude? You haven’t seemed like yourself for the last few days.”

“Who else would I be?” Tyler asks.

No one answers the question.

“All I’m saying is that if there’s something bothering you, you can talk to me about it. We’re best bros—I think,” Josh suddenly looks unsure, vulnerable. Why does his face have to be so _open?_ Why does every thought and feeling the other boy has have to show as plain as day?

 

“Best bros. You bet.”

Josh leans back until he is prostrate on the treehouse floor. He reaches both arms up and back to cushion his head from the plywood beneath his curls. When he breathes, his ribs swell and the spaces between them grow until they look to be the perfect width for Tyler’s fingers, the perfect places for his hands to splay. The skin is pale and stretched tight over bones. The hollow between ribcages looks like home to his palm and this is a _dream_ , none of this is even _real_ so there are no repercussions, right?

Quieting his thoughts, he shifts to reach out and rest his hand on Josh’s ribs. He can feel them _move_ when Josh breathes, feels the boy’s twitch of surprise at Tyler’s touch. The skin is surprisingly cool. Usually, Tyler has the coldest hands, but he’s feeling very warm now. It’s soft like velvet pulled taut over bone and Tyler rubs his thumb along the space between the bottom two ribs, so _soft_ …

“Bro. What’s up.”

Tyler pulls his hand away like he’s been burned. For a moment, he’d forgotten that Josh was real, that Josh was awake, that Josh could just crack his eyes open and stare at him. Had Tyler been making a face? Did it look like the blissed out expression that Josh had worn when describing how _soft_ the skin of Sophia’s jaw had been? His face feels red. His heart is beating quickly, filled with shame and embarrassment.

“There was a bug on you,” Tyler lies. “I got it though.”

“Crap, are you kidding me? Thanks, man. You must have, like, saved my life.”

“That’s me,” Tyler mutters, shifting until his hands are underneath his thighs. Maybe if he sits on them, he won’t be tempted to reach out with them. “I’m a life saver.”

“Definitely,” Josh sighs, letting his eyes slip closed again.

That peaceful position is too much for Tyler to take. Without thought (without even knowing it is possible) he forces himself awake and the Treehouse fades away. In the dark of his bedroom, he can still see Josh. Even when he scrubs his eyes, the image won’t go away. Especially not when his phone buzzes on his nightstand, Josh asking what happened? you okay?

Tyler wraps his arms around himself, trying to hold himself together: a lesson in futility.

#

Thursday morning dawns sunny and miserable. Tyler has been awake for the last three hours, sitting on his bed and staring at the window to watch the sunrise. Usually, there is something about a sunrise that gives him hope, that lifts his spirits; today, Tyler is beyond help. He watches the colors bloom across the sky numbly. In his head echoes the brief dream he had last night.

A sign, plastered on the trap door.

A kiss, _making out_ as Josh called it through the goofy smile on his face.

A date, _’This Saturday, hopefully. She’s driving but I’m paying. Isn’t that sick?”_

So sick. So sick that Tyler felt sick when he heard it. So sick that rage crawled up his throat and was barely held back by the clasp of his teeth. It was like holding back tears of fire that burnt above his throat and behind his eyes. Who was he angrier at? Sophia for kissing Josh when his own sister could have died just two days ago? Josh for ‘making out’ with a harlot in his basement while his younger siblings were upstairs? Or Tyler himself for being jealous and practically giving Josh his blessing to shove his tongue in the girl’s mouth?

Opening his dresser drawer, he removes the calendar and makes another X over the day. There are many of them now. He thinks about taking out the dusty Bible and holding it again (maybe _reading_ it even) but the strength it would take to pick it up isn’t worth the emptiness he will feel talking to a God who doesn’t talk back. God is supposed to be everywhere at once, but Tyler supposes that maybe his bedroom, with him, is the exception. There could be a billion Towers of Babylon and Tyler would still feel twice as far away, like the further he reaches, the farther away he becomes.

Getting up, he draws the curtains closed until the room is bathed in darkness.

When his mother comes in, Tyler tells her that he isn’t feeling well and that he wants to stay home from school. It’s early in the semester for him to have missed _twice_ , but she just frowns, kisses his forehead, and tells him to get some rest. If it were a few months ago, the suspicion she felt would outweigh the trust, but those were different times.

His mother has only been gone for five minutes when his door opens again and Zack is standing there, clad in their school uniform. He leans in the doorway, brown eyes rolling over the room from the closed curtains to Tyler sitting cross-legged on his bed in the darkness. “Mom said you’re sick.”

“Yes.”

“You’re lying. Get up.”

“I’m not lying.”

“ _Get up._ ”

“No.”

Zack crosses the room in three long strides, wraps his hand around Tyler’s thin wrist and wrenches him clean off of the bed until he clatters onto the carpeted floor, getting friction burns on his palms and jarring his wrists and teeth painfully. Tyler looks up, wide eyed and _afraid_. He reaches up to ward off an expected blow but his brother is crossing the room to his closet, throwing the doors open and rifling through the clothes on hangers. He tosses out a dress shirt, their uniform vest, dress pants. When he turns around, he looks empty at the sight of Tyler cowering with his back against the bed.

“You’re not sick. You’re lying. You’re going to school.”

“No,” Tyler says lowly, gritting his teeth. Zack makes a threatening move and when Tyler flinches away, the spell seems to break. The anger melts from his younger brother’s shoulders and he reaches up to rub at his eyes with both palms.

“God. I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

“Get out of my room.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Cool. Respect me and get the hell out of my room now.”

Zack takes another look around at the clothes he’s scattered, at Tyler on the floor by the bed. His eyes stop at the drawer of the nightstand. “Don’t think that I don’t know, Ty. I check that stupid calendar book every fucking night while you’re taking your showers. You’re getting sick again. I’m not going to let it happen.”

 

“You don’t know anything.” Tyler stands on shaky legs and barely manages to cross the room, hoping that he looks more put-together than he feels. He looks Zack in the eyes to lie to him. “I’m fine. Mind your own business—and watch your language.”

He shuts the door in his brother’s face. When it’s closed, he’s never felt lonelier and more closed off from the world, but Tyler is learning that sometimes the prisons he finds himself in are his own making. This is his fault. He shuts the doors. Part of him can feel things spiraling beyond his control (his emotions, his identity, his life), but while he’s desperate to reach out and grab hold of something stable, the only thing he can think to hold on to is Josh.

And Josh is holding on to someone else, now.

#

Tyler is trying to masturbate. It’s going Not Well.

On one hand, now is the perfect time. There is no risk at all of being walked in on or discovered (which is usually his only hesitation). The entire house is empty and quiet, and if he pretends, he could probably feel like the only person in the world. He has chosen his favorite place—at least, the place he feels safest—his shower. Minimal mess to clean up, for one, and the steam and the roar from the water beating down on the linoleum is the perfect amount of sensory overload to let him get locked inside his own head.

Only right now, it isn’t working at all. No matter how he focuses on the sensation, he can’t get hard.

 _You’re just upset,_ he thinks to himself. _You’re having a bad day. You can’t write poems when you aren’t in the mood, how could you get off if you aren’t in the mood?_

The excuse doesn’t feel good enough though. He’s determined to figure out his feelings about Josh, which involves deciding if he can feel sexually attracted to the older boy, but it’s impossible to tell if it’s the thought of Josh that has him completely unaroused or if it’s the mental stress he feels under.

Furious, Tyler reaches out and turns the shower to the highest temperature and lets it scald him until his eyes burn with tears as much as his skin burns with the heat, red and tender all over. He deserves it for leading Josh on. He deserves it for leading himself on. There’s no solace in the pain. There’s no satisfaction gained at all, and Tyler leaves the shower feeling dirtier than ever.

#

Tyler’s eyes flutter. They sting with sweat that drips down his forehead. In the distance is the faint sound of birds calling. It’s the fluttering of wings that startles him awake, sitting up so quickly that the blood rushes from his head and blackness oozes across his vision. When it clears to the thrumming of his heart, he’s sitting in the first treehouse. The last thing he can remember is lounging on the couch in the basement playing Mario Kart against the computers.

It’s strange to be here without Josh, but Tyler feels relieved not to see the curly-haired drummer here. He still hasn’t figured his feelings about the older boy, and until then, his presence could only cause more confusion—or, worse: temptation.

Usually there is something very peaceful about the Treehouse, but today there is an underlying feeling of discord like when he’s trying to play a major chord on the piano at church but one of his finger slips. The sunlight streaming through the windows does not seem as bright as usual, and the noises of the birds are not as melodic.

Posted again on the trap door is the same message: **CLOSED FOR EXTERMINATIONS :)**

Tyler tears it down and into shreds. Moving to the window, he is just about to peer out when there is a great flash of black that passes within inches of the sill. His heart skips, and he jerks away, clutching at his chest and causing ribbons of paper to scatter around the room. A beast outside gives a great _caw_ , and it’s _definitely_ not the songbird that used to exist in the Forest. Outside the window is the flutter of wings and the snapping of beaks. Drawn against his will, Tyler moves carefully back to the window and peers out.

One look has him turning away, a hand over his mouth, but it’s too late. The image is burned in his brain.

Beneath the window of the first treehouse, moldering on the forest floor, was the bloated body of a boy surrounded by crows the size of cats picking at its tattered flesh. And the _smell_ …

A crow lands on the windowsill, turning its head to stare at him with one black eye, beak tinged red nearly up to its dark, iridescent feathers. It bobs its head to size him up. Tyler lunges at it and it flies away lackadaisically, black wings opening wide as it soars.

He forces himself back, to look down at the decomposing child. For some reason, it feels like his burden to shoulder. One hand clamps over his nose to muffle the smell and his elbow brushes against rough twine, the unexpected sensation making him flinch.

There is a rope hanging down from above, the wind gently dragging it just into and out of the frame of the windowsill. Craning his head outwards and looking up, he can see that the rope scales the side of the Treehouse.

Grabbing hold, Tyler tests its strength. It seems solid enough for him to hoist himself up into the windowsill. The cawing of the crows seems to disappear and he knows that they are _watching_ him. Let them watch. He reaches up and pulls himself out of the window and up the rope, planting his feet against the Treehouse to give him the leverage to climb upwards.

Out of shape, he stops to take a break above the second treehouse, letting his legs dangle off of the edge of the roof. Sweat stings the rope burns on his palms, and it reminds him of crossing the rope bridge so long ago with Josh leading the way, the rough rope under his hands and the sunlight beating down on his neck. Without Josh, without Blurryface, Tyler feels so alone in the Forest. There might be Someone at the top of the Treehouse, but if there is, Tyler can’t feel Them there.

 

Tyler begins to cry. He isn’t sure what starts his tears, but it’s like a faucet that won’t be switched off. He’s crying for his confusion, for the uncertainty that makes him question the identity he has created for himself. He’s crying for the bloated, blackened body of the child becoming bird food two houses down. He’s crying for Ashley, he’s crying for Josh, he’s crying for everyone. He’s crying for himself, because he’s starting to feel like he used to, so sick in the head that they would lock him up if they knew.

Smoke. He sniffs. Through his tears and stuffed nose, the scent is faint but clear. Through the haze of his tears, he can’t see much, but clearly there is nothing _on fire_. Wiping at his eyes, his vision clears. All he can see is the forest, trees towering above his lofty position on the second treehouse.

He needs to climb higher to get a better vantage point. Sniffing violently to clear his nose, he wipes his tear-dampened hands on the tatters of his shirt and reaches again for the rope. Until he can brace himself against the third treehouse, he has to use all of the muscles in his arms and back and thighs until his body aches with the effort. The windows of each house he passes are boarded over with the same sign plastered over them: **CLOSED FOR EXTERMINATIONS :)**

It isn’t until he’s standing on the roof the fourth treehouse that he finally sees it: smoke, climbing into the air and darkening the sky.

The Forest is burning.

#

Today, Josh does not go to the hospital to see Ashley. He’s suicide-proofing the house, which is just as daunting of a task as it sounds to be. Every room contains dangerous potential: the knives in the kitchen get locked in one of the drawers that he clears free of other utensils. Sorting through the bathroom, he sits aside the products that Ashely uses in the morning: her nail polishes, her dark eyeliners, her make-up and hairspray. Those will be left out, but everything else will be locked in the medicine cabinet. All medicine is thrown away, and the only thing kept in the house are tiny, non-lethal doses of ibuprofen and allergy medicine.

If Ashley ever wants to cut the crusts of her sandwich, she’ll have to ask someone to do it for her or ask for permission to get a knife. If she ever wants to shave, she’ll have to ask for the key to get a razor from the medicine cabinet. There will be no more prescriptions in the house except for Josh’s which will remain under lock and key at all times. The curtains in the living room have had the decorative tassels removed because they are _just_ long enough to hang oneself with.

Altogether, it’s nearly the most miserable thing he’s ever had to do, and he can’t imagine that it’s going to make Ashley happy to see Abigail being treated more like an adult than _she_ is.

Embarrassment will be a small price to pay for her life, though, won’t it?

And if she resents him, all of them? Small price to pay.

When there’s nothing left to do and Tyler still hasn’t texted him back (like, sure, it was just a good morning text, but _really_ Tyler is usually a chatterbox, and after the abrupt ending to their dream last night, Josh is antsy to hear from him), Josh decides to get out the puzzle of lions that he took home with him from the hospital.

The cover is too worn and peeling to get a decent idea of what the picture is. Clearing off the countertop in the kitchen, Josh dumps the puzzle out. It’s only two hundred pieces and should fit easily in the space. The gentle, rustling flood of puzzle pieces being poured free makes him shiver. This is _the_ puzzle, the one that Tyler said he was his favorite when he was in the hospital. Part of Josh feels weird about doing this particular puzzle, especially since he’s doing it just to feel closer to Tyler. It’s a weird thing to do, isn’t it? But Josh’s obsession with the basketball player seems to know no bounds. Thank god—or he might feel _shameful_ or something.

Piece by piece, the picture comes together. Doing puzzles has always been soothing to Josh, when he has the concentration for them. More often than not, they have to be small in order for him to see them through to completion or else he’ll get bored or distracted. This puzzle however has his entire attention. Separating the edges from the innards, organizing them apart by color.

The picture is of a tropical island. There is white sand, bumpy with jagged shells poking free. Gray-blue water laps at the sands leaving foam in its wake. There is green foliage, the rough bark of palm trees soaring up and out of frame. Curled up in the sand is a great, sleeping lion. Or are its eyes just barely slitted open showing poisonous green irises?

It would be helpful if both eyes were there—but the piece containing the lion’s left eye is gone. Josh searches the box and finds nothing there. He scans the floors but to no avail. Sometimes, he finds that lies he tells end up coming true and coming back to bite him. It turns out that when he told Ashley there were pieces missing, he was right.

And what did he learn about Tyler? Nothing, except that maybe he needed more discipline when it came to caring for his puzzles.

Carefully, he breaks the puzzle apart and returns it to its box.

#

**To: Tyler**

**denny’s tomorrow morning?**

**i’ll pay.**

**nevermind, it’s cool. i hope you’re okay.**

**#**

Tyler skips dinner to sit alone in his room.

Alone. That’s the key word, the one that is like a skipping track on a mixed CD repeating again and again in the acoustic room of his skull. Drifting upstairs are the sounds of his family having pot roast: conversation and the clink of knives and forks on plates muted through the carpeted floor. The sounds amplify his loneliness.

He can’t take the silence. The silence from the cage at the back of his head, while comforting at first, has turned into something sinister. Tyler was _used_ to Blurryface, and while having the Bad One around wasn’t pleasurable, at least it was comfortable. Blurry was the source of his misery. Now that he was gone—why was Tyler still miserable?

 

The answer seems obvious: Blurryface wasn’t responsible for Tyler’s misery. The fault was all Tyler’s—and the weight of that (the responsibility of being in charge of his own happiness or misery) seems like it’s too much to bear. It feels like there’s tremendous pressure building up inside of him and the only way to let it out is for his skin to crack. He hasn’t given in to those urges since the day of his breakdown.

But he wants to. God, he wants to. Needs to, like how others need water and air. The anger and the fear and the self-loathing have swelled until they press against the inside of his skin and bruise him from the inside out. He needs something to quiet the pain, a tonic for his malady. He _deserves_ this for his confusion about Josh, his lies to his only friend, the lies to his family, to himself.

Tyler goes to the bottom drawer of the dresser across the room. For a moment, he doesn’t think that the box is there—has it been moved? Has one of his family members found it, known it for what it was, and taken it? Clothes scatter all over his floor as he upends the drawer, and at last he finds it pressed into the back left corner, untouched by dust and time.

It’s just a shoebox that rattles from the objects inside. He opens it to sift through. There’s a cornucopia of knick-knacks and miscellaneous items with sentimental value: movie tickets with faded ink, concert tickets from the artists who come to Columbus, notes from middle school…a store-bought napkin folded into a neat square, printed with faded flowers. That is the item he reaches for, unfolding carefully.

The razor blade is there exactly where he left it. The morning of his breakdown in the spring, he had used it to cut half of a dozen thin marks on his thighs just high enough for his basketball shorts to cover. He’d gone through his usual ritual of cleaning it, folding it up, tucking it away…and then he’d never used it again.

Recovery only gets moderately easier with time; the secret is that it’s relapse which becomes harder. Numbers start to add up like miles behind him on a road trip in the car, and there comes a point when turning back isn’t _sane_. It’s been 203 days since Tyler cut himself. If he does this, it doesn’t feel like Relapse. It feels like a calculated choice. A choice to be sick. A choice to keep himself sick.

“God, please,” Tyler mouths silently. “Help me.”

_Don’t let me fall…_

_But if I do fall…_

_Make it hard enough…_

_To be the last time._

Today, the numbers seem too big to be destroyed.

Gathering his last reserves of strength, he tucks away the blade and closes the box, shoving clothes haphazardly into the drawer to disguise it. The drawer won’t close, but it doesn’t matter. He takes several deep breaths, beating down the fear and the panic so that he will look relatively normal if he runs into his family, but he passes none of them on his trip to the basement. His parents, sister, and youngest brother are in the living room talking about some American Idol spinoff.

He knocks on Zack’s door, biting the nails of his free hand. His brother answers, face changing from confused to guarded.

Hey,” Tyler says.

“What’s up?”

“I’m—not—safe—to be alone.” The words are so hard to say when part of him doesn’t feel deserving of his brother’s company or _anyone’s_ company. He feels weak; he feels dramatic.

 _Please don’t turn me away._ “I need to be with someone. I need—” “To shoot hoops?” Zack finishes.

Tyler blinks.

They go out into the hot evening. The sun has just set, and while there are lights at each corner of the basketball court, the one just south of the hoop is burned out. Zack’s eyesight in the dark isn’t as good as Tyler’s, so that’s where he lures his younger brother again and again until the boy catches on and starts blocking him. They play through the sweat and mosquitoes and Midwestern pests and even when Zack is struggling to keep up, he doesn’t _stop_.

Even when it’s nearing eleven at night (and Tyler shows no sign of slowing), Zack doesn’t stop.

At a quarter until midnight, their father comes out to tell them to give it a rest, but Zack shakes his head pointedly and the boys are left alone again.

It is nearing one in the morning when Tyler hasn’t made a basket in the last two dozen shots and Zack even longer since that Tyler lets himself stop, bending at the waist. It isn’t enough for his straining lungs and pounding heart, so he lets himself collapse completely prostrate on the concrete.

“Wuss,” Zack gasps, taking several steps away to gag in the grass.

Tyler agrees, too exhausted to say so. Time passes, slow and sticky. Even though he’s still struggling for breath, his brother stumbles over to offer him a sweaty hand which Tyler accepts. They stand shakily. He’s afraid that he’s pulled a muscle in his hamstring, and he knows that he will be hurting in a hundred different places (like his arms, his legs, his heart, his head) when the morning comes, but he couldn’t care less, because at least his heart is _quiet_.

“Tomorrow, we’re going to tell mom what’s going on. We’ll talk to Cooper. We’ll go back on the meds. Whatever it takes. Tyler. I can’t clean up after you again. That—that hurt.”

Those _words_ hurt, but he can’t hold them against his brother. Only one of them came home to an empty house to clean up the blood and glass to make sure their younger siblings wouldn’t see. It’s been months and they’ve never talked about what Zack had to come and do, but there is the proof of it in the fear on his brother’s face.

Tyler is reminded of one of the first lessons he learned in therapy: his choices have consequences.

“Okay,” he says. “First thing in the morning. I’ll go to mom.”

“ _We_ will go to mom. Together. Okay?”

Tyler smiles, feeling like he has to learn how to do that all over again. “Together.”

#

He sleeps in the basement on the floor. Zack tries to give him the pull-out, but Tyler refuses. He’s a guest in Zack’s bedroom—and the floor isn’t really so uncomfortable, not with all the blankets and pillows they pile there for him. His phone is still blinking with unread messages from Josh who has sent them steadily throughout the night.

Ashley is coming home tomorrow. Tyler needs to be there emotionally. He’s one of the only people who knows what Josh—what Ashley—is going through, but he doesn’t feel emotionally available. There’s a sign on the window: Out to Lunch, only the window is his heart. The truth is that he’s beginning to fear that he has bigger problems to worry about, problems that (if unsolved) could make it so that he isn’t around to be there for Josh and Ashley in the first place.

It’s two in the morning, but Tyler still can’t sleep. Instead, he falls into the routine that he’s had for the last few days. Closing his eyes, he visits the cage. Tonight, it looks different. There are other cages: empty, lined up in a row. Tyler knows the one that is _his_ though, because the bars are all bent up in the usual fashion.

Tyler paces around it. He stops, grabbing both bars where they bow outward, squeezing them tightly with hands that ache. He closes his eyes. “Where are you?” He says to nothing.

“She’s here,” a voice says quietly.

Heart pounding, he looks up to see a familiar silhouette, though not the one he was suspecting. Ashley is inside the cage at the other end of the bars, staring out away from him. Her hospital gown swims on her, going halfway down her shins. Auburn hair is mussed in the back from lying in a hospital bed. Her feet are bare, nails painted dark, and surrounded by fragments of shattered mirror.

“Ashley,” he says. “What are you doing?”

“I don’t know,” she replies. Her voice sounds thick, like she’s talking through tears. Her little shoulders shrug. “I don’t have anything better to do.”

He carefully steps around the perimeter of the cage. He needs to look at her face, something in him _needs_ this, but she turns away from him, pacing away, hands reaching up to press at her eyes, glass crunching under her bare feet. The sound makes him flinch.

“Hey. Ashley. Come here, okay? Just come stand by me.”

They do the same game, Tyler coming around to head her off but she turns away, walking back to where she first appeared. Her feet leave bloody smudges on the floor. Frustrated, he clutches at the bowed bars and lets his forehead rest between the cool steel. He needs to try a different tactic.

“Ashley. What’s wrong? Please talk to me.”

“Out for lunch,” she says. “Please leave a message at the beep.” Stooping, she bends down to pick up a piece of the glass.

“Ashley.”

She whispers quietly under her breath, turning the glass to see every side like it’s a smooth stone plucked from a riverbed. She says the same word again and again: _beep, beep, beep._

“Put it down.”

“Make me.” She begins to hack at her arms, great gashing wounds blooming under the force and sharpness of the glass.

Tyler throws himself against the bars desperately, pressing against the space in between, trying to force himself through with all of his might. His ears are pressed nearly flat against his skull between the bars and still he can’t get through. He tenses his stomach, adjusts his hips, lets all the breath loose from his lungs and _still_ he can’t fit, but that isn’t good enough, not when Ashley has slipped in her own blood and is sitting among the glass, stabbing at her _face_ now. Tyler MUST make it through.

He MUST.

HE MUST.

And his desperation does the trick. Something gives: an eighth of an inch between his skull and shoulders and hips and the bars and he is slipping through, all points of contacting aching with the strain but that doesn’t matter—Ashley matters. He kicks aside the glass under his feet, dropping to his knees next to her prone body, reaching out to turn her towards him, horrified by the damage he hasn’t even seen yet—

The moment he touches her, there is a sound like thunder and she turns into _birds_ , black with the shape of Swallows that burst away as if from a newly opened cage, flittering through the bars and out into the darkness of his mind. There is no Ashley. There is no blood. There is only the glass, shattered into oblivion.

And there is applause.

When Tyler turns, Blurryface is lounging against the bars Tyler has just forced himself through, leaning his temple against the cool steel, face solemn. He reaches up a blackened hand to wave. “Hey, Ty. Long time, no see.”


	25. Miranda Rights

“‘Long time, no see?’” Tyler asks. He licks his dry lips, taking careful steps backwards until his back is against the bars. “Isn’t that a little cliché?”

The creature opposite him could not look less threatening in posture or expression (Blurry actually looks blank, like this is a relatively normal setting to bump into an old acquaintance), but no part of Tyler is fooled. Every part of him feels electrified and on alert. His instincts warn him that this is a predator and Tyler is the prey.

And somehow, it’s _Tyler_ in the cage.

“Cliché’s are cliché because they work,” Blurry says. “Not to mention that there was nothing cliché about my bird trick. How often do you see a girl spontaneously combust into _birds?_ I never get enough credit.”

“Impressive,” Tyler remarks. His mouth is so dry that it’s hard to talk. He clears his throat but it doesn’t help. “Where’s Ashley?”

Blurry cocks his head until his temple rests against one crooked bar. He reaches both arms through to lean casually against the outside of the cage. Still clad in the white outfit he wore during their last dream together, he is the picture of nonchalance. “I assume she’s still at the hospital. She had an accident, don’t you remember? It was very tragic; I was there.”

Tyler can’t reply. His heart feels like a bird trapped in the cage of his chest, wings beating against his ribs, begging to be released. A small voice whispers in the back of his mind: _this is not good._

“Ashley’s been really good company in my spare time,” Blurry continues. “The depression meds she’s on makes her sleepy, so she takes plenty of naps during the day. Therapy is going well—but we know how _that_ goes, don’t we? The first few sessions are always a walk in the park: getting to know one another, shooting the breeze. It won’t be long before the therapist forces Ashley to confront the things she doesn’t want to think about, and when that happens? I’ll be there. I’ll be like an old friend by then. She’ll welcome me with open arms.”

“Leave Ashley alone.”                   

“Ashley is child’s play; a hobby while I bide my time,” Blurry says. He shifts on his feet, sneakers squeaking. A glance down shows that the soles of his shoes are wet with snow that is melting in a puddle beneath him, like he’s come from an icy place.

“What do you want?”

“Honestly?” Blurryface asks. “I want to talk to you.”

“Talk,” Tyler repeats. The word is syrup in his mouth, slow and sticky.

Blurry smiles faintly, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Yes. I know; it’s not my usual _modus operandi_ , but I’ve had some time to think while I’ve been gone. You could say that I’ve done some soul-searching—only _yours_ was the soul that I was searching. I’m not one to beat a dead horse. Sometimes you have the find a new horse to beat. So we’re going to have a good talk here, and when we’re done talking, you’re going to make a choice. That choice will directly impact where we go from here. Does that sound reasonable?”

It does. Frighteningly, it does. This version of Blurry is unfamiliar, the strategy is foreign. Tyler swallows, trying to find moisture in his mouth to answer. Afraid that his voice will sound weak, he just nods. His spine is pressed flush between two bars behind him, but he still doesn’t feel far enough away from Blurry. Far isn’t far enough, not when they’re tethered together like twins in the same womb.

Blurry begins to speak, low and calm. It is a decidedly sensible, adult voice: a voice used to woo wild animals within reach of the leash and to talk suicidal men down from the ledge. While he speaks, he paces like he is a wild animal, a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

“You’ve been struggling lately,” Blurryface says quietly, trailing his fingers along the bars _tap tap tap tap_. “I made sure to sit back and watch, to keep my influence out of it, and you _still_ floundered and twisted like a worm on a hook. It’s clear that you aren’t cut out for this life: you’re fragile. Now, that isn’t necessarily your fault. Don’t think of it as failure, think of it more like an unfortunate bout of bad luck, like rotten cards dealt at a poker table. Does that help? I tried to think of helpful metaphors. Anyway, genetics, environmental factors—they’ve all came together to make you soft and weak. You’re like the straw house in that story with the Three Little Pigs. All it takes is a huff and a puff to cave you in.”

Blurry stops his pacing, clenching his hands around two bars to stare through. His knuckles shine gray with the intensity of his grip, white beneath black paint. “We both know that I am more resilient. The pains that cripple you are nothing to me but grains of sand on a dessert. I feel no desire to subscribe to the social restraints that you fashion around your ankles and wrists every morning. I could do great things with your body, things that you will never accomplish otherwise in this universe.

“This a one-time offer, so I hope you consider it carefully. _Let me take the reins._ There will be no more responsibility for you. No more anxiety. No more uncertainty. In the back of your mind?

There is nothing. There is no loneliness or fear. Give into me, Tyler. Let me rule you.”

Tyler legs give out and he slips gently down the bars to sit among the glass. There’s something about being curled up that makes him feel safer, even if it seems a little childlike. Blurryface’s offer shouldn’t be tempting, but a small, selfish part of Tyler _is_ tempted. It’s a comforting thought to give up the responsibility, to sit in the passenger’s seat for once and not be behind the wheel of his own destiny; the road he travels sometimes is so dark, with no signs to tell him if he’s on the right path or if it’s too late to turn back.

“But you’re evil,” Tyler whispers.

“Evil is relative. Compared to some I might be evil, but compared to others I am a saint.”

“You’ll hurt my family.”

“Probably.”

“You’ll hurt Josh.”

“That’s the difference between us,” Blurry says quietly. “I will hurt anyone to protect myself.

You’ll hurt yourself to protect everyone else. Only one of those paths makes sense.”

Tyler shakes his head. “I—I can’t let you do that. I can’t let you hurt them.”

“Don’t answer in haste.” For the first time, there is an edge the Blurry’s voice, muted but threatening like the sharpness of a sword covered by a cloth sheath, like the invisible threat of a razor blade folded up in a paper napkin. “Because as I said, this is a one-time offer. You should understand what the repercussions will be if you say no.”

“Which are?”

“I will take control your body by force. One way or the other, I will have hegemony. If you say no, this entire process will be dragged out, but don’t be fooled! All of these roads lead to the same destination. I will rule you. If I have to waste good time and effort, you can bet that it’s going to hurt, Ty. I’m going to make it _hurt_. Save yourself the pain and give in.”

“You’re saying that either way, you’re going to hurt the people that I love—and you expect me to be okay with that?” Outrage makes him brave. Tyler finds it hard to be brave for himself sometimes, but there’s no shortage of bravery for the people he loves. Maybe there was some truth in what Blurryface said: Tyler can’t stick up for himself but would fall on the sword for those closest to him. Why did that have to be such a bad thing, though? Maybe love just brought out the best in him. “You expect me to pick one of those options? I don’t think so.

“Here’s my choice. I’m still behind the wheel, here, so I get to choose the destination, and it just so happens that all of _your_ destinations suck. You can take your options, you can take this—this fake diplomacy and shove it. I’m in control, and I’m never going to give it up to you and I’m never going to let you win,” Tyler says softly. “You can quote me on that. You can bet on it.”

Blurryface tilts his head back to laugh, but there’s little humor in the sound. It sounds mean, incredulous. He runs his tongue along the outside of his teeth, adjusting his grip on the bars—his hands keep slipping, slickened with black paint. “You know. I really thought that was going to work. _He’ll see sense_ , I thought. It looks like we’re both fools, Ty.” “I’m no fool,” Tyler whispers.

“You’re the king of fools,” Blurry hisses. He slaps a hand against the bars and Tyler flinches at the sound that echoes in his mind. “I hope that you like it in here. It’s quite cozy. I’m sure you’ll feel at home in no time at all.”

Tyler says nothing. As soon as Blurryface is gone, he plans to slip back through the bars. Now that he knows he can push through the pain, he’s confident that his escape will be easier than his entrance. As if reading his mind, the one outside the cage puts a hand on each bowed bar. With a low groan of twisting metal, he pushes the bars back into place. Tyler watches the gap of his escape disappear with a sinking heart, like the bird in his chest has tucked its wings close in a dive and is letting itself fall lower and lower.

“ _I’m_ no fool,” Blurryface repeats. “Get used to your cage.”

“I won’t be here long,” Tyler says without thinking. “Josh will come for me.”

“Josh?” Blurry asks, eyebrows climbing high on his forehead. He laughs, and this time it’s uproarious like Tyler has told a joke that is the pinnacle of hilarious. “Josh fell asleep around ten!

I’ve been with him for the last four hours: just the two of us. We’ve really bonded, I think. Unfortunately, he’s in no condition to be _your_ knight in shining armor, since he’s too busy catering to my every little whim. He’s very good for that. Not that you’d know—even if you’d like to know.”

Tyler’s head spins like someone has let loose the plug holding back the blood in his brain. His eyes flicker back and forth trying to find a place to settle while his mind whirs frantically, stuck on a solitary thought: Josh has been with Blurry for _hours_. He remembers all too well the version of Josh that Blurryface was closest with. Spooky. The one with the alien mask who insulted and demeaned himself as quickly as Blurry could demand it. The perverse way that the creature talked about Josh makes Tyler see red.

 

The idea that Blurryface could hurt Josh in any was repulsive; yet there was something inherently evil, something unfathomably horrific in the idea that Blurry could hurt him in any sexual way, could possibly take advantage of Josh when the other boy can’t say _no_. It makes Tyler livid.

It makes him feel helpless.

“I’m going to kill you someday,” Tyler says. His hands clench and unclench in apoplectic, useless rage. Beneath him, his hands brush glass. He wishes he could pick up a shard and stab through one of Blurry’s eyes with it. He isn’t a violent person and has never wished violence on anyone, dream or not, but for Blurryface, Tyler is willing to make an exception.

“You can try,” Blurry replies blandly. He looks at his wrist where a familiar gold wristwatch rests. “Anyway, I have an absolutely delectable alien to get back to. I hope you enjoy your time in this prison. You’re going to be here for a very long time.”

Tyler smiles but the skin feels stretched too tightly across his cheeks. “No I’m not.”

Blurry’s head cocks, eyes dark and shrewd, looking everywhere for Tyler’s meaning.

Tyler picks up a piece of glass. He turns it over in his hands admiring the glint of it in the light. When it’s turned face up, he can see a sliver of himself in the shattered mirror: a tired, resigned boy. He looks up to see himself standing on the other side of the bars, watching the movement of his hands. Realization creeps over Blurry’s face like a monster creeping from the closet when the lights are turned out.

“ _You wouldn’t dare._ ”

Tyler moves before he can chicken out. He reaches up and drags the blade across his throat. The wound bursts with blood and pain. Adrenalin masks some of it, but it fucking _hurts_. He cries out but there’s no sound from his mouth, just the warm bubble of blood, and Tyler imagines that his own incredulous face is mirrored by Blurry’s shock: mouth agape, eyes wide with wonder.

“ _No!_ ” Blurry bellows, but the sound is distant through the rushing of blood in his ears. Tyler stabs at his own face, once, twice, three times. Warm, Tyler looks down to see he is drenched in his own blood, hand gripping the glass hard enough that it cuts his palms. There is the twisting of metal as Blurryface bends the bars open and slips into the cage. Sneakers skid on glass and blood as his doppelgänger kneels down, pressing his hands against the gaping wounds in Tyler’s neck and cheek. “Fucking idiot. Stupid fucking idiot. I’ll get you for this. You and your little dog, too.”

But Tyler is dying, eyes slipping closed and Blurry’s words getting lost in a haze of white noise. There comes a time when all is dark, when he can’t move and the roaring in his ears is too loud to hear anything else. _Is this the afterlife?_ Tyler wonders.

His eyes burst open to the white walls of the Treehouse. He gasps Josh’s name like it’s the most important breath he will ever take, but there is no answer. Tyler searches the entire room (though there isn’t much to search), rifling through the crawlspace, chucking games and jars of paint which shatter against the wooden floors. Part of him believes that Josh has to be there somewhere, hiding behind a stack of puzzles or curled up behind the tree trunk, asleep and waiting to be awoken by a prince soaked in blood.

Josh is nowhere to be found.

Tyler stops destroying the crawlspace. He sits slumped among the mess feeling on the verge of angry tears. His cheek stings and when he touches it, his fingers comes away with fresh blood that he wipes on his tattered shirt. Blurry was being honest: he had Josh in his clutches, and who knows what was happening to him, and who knows where Tyler should even begin to look.

Cutting through the silence of the treehouse is a knock. Tyler’s breath hitches as he listens, begging his heartbeat to still and his blood to slow so that he might catch the slightest noise. For a moment, there is nothing but silence; then, another knock. Not so crisp as to be called a _knock_ , perhaps more of a rhythmic banging like a flat fist on wood. He reaches up to pull himself free of the crawlspace.

“Josh?” He whispers to the stillness.

_Bang, bang, bang._

It’s coming from the trapdoor in the floor, boarded over. He gets goosebumps as if something has crawled down the back of his neck. There’s no way he’s answering that knock. Josh isn’t on the other side. That’s for sure.

But whoever it is, they’re persistent. _Bang, bang, bang._ The force of the knocks is so great now that the wood trembles, and he can hear the creaking of rope from something shifting impatiently on the ladder waiting to be let in.

_BANG, BANG, BANG._

The sound of splintering wood has Tyler scrambling for the window. He’ll jump if he has to. He’s not high enough to break a leg, and he hopes that whatever is waiting down there hasn’t been on the basketball team for the last six years working on their leg strength. If not, he can outrun it. Surely he can.

 

But that won’t be necessary, because just as he’s about to jump, his elbow brushes against something rough. It’s a rope dangling down, disappearing up to scale the side of the treehouse. It’s escape. It’s the sweetest thing he’s ever seen.

The splintering of wood grows, boards fracturing under hands fueled by inhuman fury. Tyler shifts himself upwards to sit on the precarious windowsill, clenching the rope in his hands. It stings—one of his palms is torn to shreds from earlier and he wipes the slick blood on his ruined shirt. The pain is minimal compared to whatever will happen if the creatures giving chase catch him. Odds are that Josh is further up in the Treehouse, anyway.

He hopes.

With a last great crash, the trap door is open. A Gasman enters, goggle eyes sweeping the treehouse and landing on where Tyler sits in the windowsill. Ignoring the searing pain in his hand, he clenches the rope tightly and lets himself tip backwards and out of the window. Gravity does most of the work and he is out, scrambling for his sneakers to get purchase on the rough wooden planks on the outside of the treehouse.

Two, four, six Gasmen flood up through the trapdoor like a boat filling with water. Tyler only needs a moment though to disappear up the side of the treehouse—

—but he is just a moment too slow. Fierce hands encircle his ankles and he is dragged back through the windowsill, painfully jarring his half-healed throat against the lip of the window. His head cracks against the floorboards carelessly as the Gasmen surround him, pinning down his arms and legs, semi-automatic weapons swinging gently in the straps across their chest. Tyler could have gone his entire lifetime without seeing these creatures again. Up close, they are the stuff that nightmares are made of.

From the sea of white hazmat suits comes a familiar figure swathed in white, red beanie pulled low over his forehead. He pauses at the painting of Josh on the wall to chuckle and nuzzle his knuckles against the portrait’s cheek affectionately, smearing the black on his paint. Blurryface kneels down next to Tyler who has stopped his thrashing, equal parts defeated and exhausted, panting heavily through the soggy air.

Blurry smiles boyishly, giving Tyler a mock salute with two. He turns to a Gasman, voice gentle. “Hey, can I borrow that? Thanks. It’s much appreciated. You’re a champ.” AR-15 in hand, Blurry lets himself breathe a laugh revealing gently crooked teeth. “Ty. Hey! Are you looking at me? This is another one of those one-liners, those clichés that you talked down about. Tell me if you like this one any better. _You’ve got the right to remain silent._ ”

With a sharp swing, he cracks Tyler across the temple with the end of the gun, knocking him unconscious with one solid blow.


	26. The Sixth Amendment

Tyler is standing on a beach at night. There is no great awakening of consciousness, just a sudden moment of awareness. He feels as if he might have been standing here for some time without knowing it like a sleepwalker who has awakened in a strange place. When he turns to look, there is a set of footprints in the sand just where the waves lick at the shore, slowly carrying away the proof that someone was ever there. The tide tickles his bare feet, soothing the blisters on his heels.

Has he been here before? It’s hard to tell in the dark. There is only a sliver of moon above him, so sharp that if it were to fall it could slice him in half. The ocean in front of him shifts and roils with the wind, moving like an enormous animal in the blackness of the night. Not for the first time, it intimidates him, reminds him of how small he is in every sense. Was there truth in the statement he heard a long time ago, that humans knew more about space than they did about what was in the deepest, darkest crevices of the ocean?

He shuddered, wrapping his arms around himself. The night air was cool, and he longed for sleeves—or at least a shirt that wasn’t torn to shreds. In his chest was a hollow ache, and he rubbed at the scar running from his breastbone down in between his bottom ribs. It was just a puckered, numb line now. Beneath it, his chest is still and empty. Then why does he hurt in his head and his gut and his heels?

A whisper is carried to him on the wind. The voice is his own, but the words are jumbled. He turns his head to follow them, and his eyes catch sight of the dock.

Of course.

Tyler walks onto the pier. It’s too dark to see, but he doesn’t need sight to _remember_. He could be a very old, very wrinkled man and still remember the pier with its gray, weathered planks covered in rough salt from years of exposure to the sea. He can almost feel it, the odd sensation of waves beating against the supports while he stands atop it. Somewhere in the desert, do marchers march, completing their own long trek to the sea?

Compelled, Tyler walks through the cool stand to stand on the dock. The wood is rough under his feet, so he steps carefully. It feels like a lifetime ago. Maybe Tyler _is_ an old, wrinkled man by now. He squints at his hand looking for proof of his age, but it’s too dark to see.

“I should have jumped,” he says to the wind, just to say it out loud, just once.

“It’s never too late,” Blurryface says from just behind his shoulder. Heavy, gloved hands grab at his arms—Gasmen, who begin to tug him towards the end of the pier. He struggles half-heartedly without a heart, bare feet dragging painfully on the wooden planks beneath him. They force him upright before one gives him a solid push off into the sea. The momentum spins him, but he doesn’t struggle against it. He gets a glimpse of on the pier where Blurryface stands, a smear in the dark waving one blackened hand like he’s saying goodbye to an old friend.

But instead of hitting the ocean, Tyler hits concrete. It’s the oddest feeling, opening his eyelids when he _already thought his eyes were open_. Nearly every important part of him cracks against the floor: tailbone, elbows, shoulder blades, skull like dominos being tipped over. The ocean bursts away into pain and Tyler is left staring up into the goggle-eyes of the two Gasmen who have just heaved him into the room with the concrete floors.

Without a word, they shuffle back through the open door. There is a glimpse of familiar wooden walls (but there has never been any _hallway_ in the Treehouse) before the door of steel is closed. The room he is in is unfamiliar in every sense with walls and floors of poured concrete and a slap of metal that could only be considered a bed if it had a mattress or bedding. There is a tiny window up and out of his reach, but it’s no use anyway: it looks as if it has been boarded over my wooden planks from the other side.

For a moment, Tyler can do nothing but lay there on the cold floor. Every part of his body hurts; his temple where Blurry smashed the gun against it, the back of his skull which has just kissed the floor. His cheek and nose are alight with pain, and his throat feels like salt on an open wound. His arms tingle like when he bumps his elbow _just_ the right way and it fills with static, and the jarring of his tailbone on the hard concrete has his whole spine aching.

He just needs a moment. One to catch his breath and then he will—well, he isn’t sure what he will do, but he can worry about that later.

Only. Tyler doesn’t even get the moment he desires. The door has barely been shut for thirty seconds when it is wrenched open again. This time it is Blurryface standing in the doorway dressed in a gaudy red suit, skinny black tie emphasizing his thin physique. He rubs his paint-slick hands together and fixes his face into a look of concern.

“Hey, Ty. Sorry to keep you waiting; running this show isn’t all about the screen time and monologues. It takes a lot of behind the scenes work that I didn’t really sign on for, but you know how the stage extras get—no vision, and—golly, is that what you’re wearing? You’d think you would have cleaned yourself up a little. Oh well, up you get. It’s your funeral.” Blurryface bounds into the room with a skip in his step, helping Tyler stand with an eerie, inhuman strength.

“Where are we going?” Tyler croaks. His throat feels dry and painful.

“Didn’t you hear?” Blurry says, escorting Tyler out of the tiny, bland room. “To your funeral.”

“ _What?_ ” He tries to stop walking but Blurry pushes forward, and Tyler is too weak to resist.

“Ha ha. I’m just kidding. I mean, it probably will lead to your funeral, but literally, we’re heading to courtroom 3A.”

“ _What?_ ”

Blurryface rolls his eyes. “Keep up, or at least vary your sentences, this really makes the dialogue drag. There are _rules_ you know. This Treehouse exists outside of reality, but you exist in America, which means there are protocols and, unfortunately, a ton of paperwork, my hand is really cramping. Anyway, we have the sixth amendment of the Constitution to keep in mind. I took eighth-grade government class too, Ty. I know all about the amendments.”

“What’s the sixth amendment?” Tyler asks. His mind is foggy, and remembering what he had for breakfast that morning seems impossible not to mention something he learned four years ago. He gives in and leans heavily on Blurryface for assistance in wherever he is being led, even if it means being led like a lamb to be slaughtered.

Blurry beams brightly. They stop just outside of double-doors consisting of crudely nailed together planks. With not a moment to spare, Blurry turns to shoulder the door open. “The right to a speedy trial, of course!”

#

The room they enter is the largest he’s seen yet in the Treehouse: nearly fifty feet at its widest length, rectangular. Staggered evenly are wooden pews, benches filled with the monochromatic Gasmen. No one turns to look at them when they enter even though the sound of Blurry’s shoes clicking on the floor are the only noise in the entire room. Ushered against his will, Tyler is led to a table resting in front of the pews where a single, rickety chair rests. To sit down brings relief to his tired legs, but is painful on his aching tailbone. On the other side of the aisle rests another table that has no chairs, like someone has forgotten to place one there.

As a focal point for the room rests the grandest Judge’s stand that Tyler’s ever seen outside of the movies. It doesn’t belong in the dusty, crude Treehouse. It is all glossy mahogany wood polished to gleam. The witness stand is connected to it but rests lower, an empty glass and a pitcher of icy water beading in the humidity sitting on the surface of it. Where the Judge—Blurryface—will sit is higher, towering over everything in the room. To make matters worse, the juror panel is filled with the same, blank Gasmen.

Is one of them Josh? That would be Tyler’s luck—to be judged by a jury of _Josh’s_ under the control of Blurryface. There will be no justice here. Tyler can feel it.

“Impressive, isn’t it?” Blurryface asks. He’s standing behind Tyler’s shoulder, looming there to point out the finer aspects of the courtroom like an artist proud of their work. “It took me ten minutes. I could have done it in five, but sometimes it feels good to linger on the details. Are you nervous? Don’t be! The truth will out. I have faith in the justice system. Don’t you?”

“Not really,” Tyler mutters.

“No? Don’t be so jaded.”

“Why are you in such a good mood?” Tyler wonders. He dreads the answer. The sort of things that make Blurryface happy are the sort of things that make _Tyler_ unhappy: widespread disease in third world countries, a box of kittens being thrown into the ocean, the endangerment of all species of bees.

“Because,” Blurryface says cheerfully and matter-of-factly. “To be honest, I was dreading this at first. It would have been so much easier if you had just rolled over like the dog you are and shown me your belly. Beating you with force—that seemed like such work, but now I see that I was wrong. It’s more like _fun._ ” Blurryface knocks his knuckles against the back of Tyler’s chair. “Stand up.”

“What for? Time to testify already? I didn’t do anything,” Tyler mutters sulkily. With no other choice, he pulls himself up on shaky legs, turning to cling to the chair back for support.

“No. You’re standing out of respect for the Judge.” Blurryface struts past to take his place standing behind the Judge’s seat. When he speaks, he calls out so that every Gasman in the quiet room can hear him. “Gentlefolk! Please rise for the Honorable Judge presiding: Joshua, Spooky Jim, Dun!”

The double doors open again, and Tyler turns to look so quickly that his neck pops with the speed. Incoming is a figure that is like water to his parched throat, like balm on a sunburn. The relief at seeing Josh in the flesh is so palpable that his knees get weak and he nearly collapses to the floor, clutching the back of his chair desperately for strength. Josh is here. Josh is alive! But the relief is almost immediately swallowed by the despair—Josh isn’t Josh. He is Spooky, and he is the Judge.

And he is covered in bruises. There is no swelling like the wounds are days old and just beginning to heal, but there is a soft blossoming of greens and purples and blues and yellows just at his temple and just beneath his left eye. There are dark smudges where fingertips used to lay along his neck, and his lip is split and badly mended. When he walks by, he does not give Tyler even a passing glance—but one of his eyes is crimson, the white filled with blood. That is all the skin that the younger boy can see since nearly everything else is covered by long, flowing, black Judge's Robes.

For all the confidence of his imposing walk and figure, when he reaches the Judge’s stand, Spooky seems to wither with uncertainty under all of the eyes (and goggle-eyes) turned to him. He looks like an actor who has stepped on stage and forgotten the first line of the play under the heat of the lights. Throat convulsing, bruised eyes turn to Blurryface whose expression is volatile.

 

Blurry raises up his hands, palms turned earthward and jerks them down.

Spooky lights up at the cue. “You may be seated!”

Fifty creatures in goggles sit with little more than a whisper of their suits. Tyler is louder, knees threatening to give out any moment. The shrieking of his wooden chair legs against the wooden floor as he pulls it from its place is the only noise in the courtroom. When he sits, at last, he practically collapses into his chair.

At the Judge’s Stand, Spooky is seated with Blurry standing behind him: two imposing, unimpressed figures. Blurry taps the Judge on the shoulder, and like a puppet with the strings pulled, he acts in accordance.

“Mr. Joseph,” Spooky says. “If you can’t restrain your outbursts, I will hold you in contempt of court.”

Blurryface hums, smiling like the cat who ate the canary. He uses the hand on Spooky’s—on Josh’s—shoulder to come up and cup his bruised jaw. The Judge _melts_ into the touch, shuddering in the throes of some sort of innocent ecstasy. Tyler wonders what Blurry’s face looks like— knows that it must be smug and condescending—but he can’t look away from where the black paint has smudged his friend’s skin.

Tyler’s mouth moves without forethought. “Josh—”

“Excuse me?” Blurryface cuts in, raising a hand to show his palm. “There is no one by that name here. Refer to the Judge as his Spookiness.”

“That’s right,” Spooky says smiling up at Blurry. It’s a squint-and-smile, sunshine through the cracks of bruises on his face. Tyler hasn’t seen the older boy give that expression in…too long. To see him smile that way at Blurryface feels like sharp betrayal.

Tyler grits his teeth together and nods in reverence, viciously appreciating the sharp sting in his neck at the movement. “I’m sorry, Your Spookiness.”

“Better,” Blurryface says. He leans down to stage whisper in the Judge’s ear. “Let me take it from here, okay Spooks?”

“Cool,” the Judge says. From inside of his Judge’s robes, he removes two drumsticks, one which is chewed nearly to the breaking point. He begins to tap out a quiet rhythm on the wooden railing in front of him, mouth lax as he focuses on the beat, eyes distant. Blurryface steps down from the Judge’s stand and comes around to pace in front of the defendant and prosecutor’s tables. Hands clasped behind his back, face melancholy, he looks like the epitome of a thoughtful attorney about to make the opening statement of a lifetime.

“Gasmen. Gaswomen. Gasfolk of the jury. We are sadly convened here today in this courtroom, 3A, to determine the verity of Tyler Robert Joseph’s crimes against the Treehouse. I think we can all agree that he is more than guilty. Let’s skip the banter and go ahead and vote. Jurors, if you will please raise your left hand to administer a guilty verdict. Left. _Left_ hand. Come on, guys, we practiced this!”

The doors at the back of the courtroom burst open. If Tyler thought the room was silent before, he had not known the true meaning. The Judge’s drumsticks freeze mid drumroll. Breath is held. Thoughts come to crashing halts. Hearts stutter and stop, and this time, every head turns to catch a glance of who could possibly be entering.

There is the sharp sound of heels clicking against the wooden floor. Tyler stands on his toes struggling to see over the alien heads of the Gasmen. At last, he catches sight of a woman in the smartest gray pantsuit that he’s ever seen, hair drawn up into a severe bun on the back of her head, her square glasses resting firmly in place. She looks no different from the last time Tyler saw her in a dream—when he awoke to find her sitting at the desk in his bedroom examining a golden wristwatch that glinted from the moonlight streaming through his window.

“Sorry I’m late, Your Spookiness,” she says. Once standing at the defense’s table, she rests her thin, black briefcase on it. “I was unaware that I had a client requiring legal representation until sixty seconds ago, or I might have been here sooner.”

The Judge frowns, drumsticks clasped loosely in his hands. His eyes dart to Blurry, who looks apoplectic with rage. No one seems sure what to say, and the silence is deafening.

She smiles coolly at the boggled expression on their faces. “Can I please get a chair? There only seems to be one at my client’s table. That strikes me as a little odd—it’s almost as if you didn’t plan for him to have representation.”

“We are fresh out of chairs,” Blurry says through his teeth.

“You can have mine,” Tyler offers.

“Nonsense,” she says, reaching forward to click open the clasps on her briefcase. She opens it and from inside pulls free an _entire folding back chair_ which she proceeds to unfold gently and place next to Tyler who frantically scoots over to make room for her despite the aching pain it causes him.

“Who in the hell are you?” Blurryface asks slowly, watching the impressive display.

“Mary Poppins?” Mary suggests. “Did I walk in on your attempt to coax a verdict from a jury who hasn’t even heard the defense’s opening statement?”

“Mr. Joseph needs no outside representation,” the Judge says. “I was advised before the trial that he was _propia persona._ ”

She looks at Tyler sharply, eyes dark like the night. “Is that true? Are you representing yourself?”

“No,” Tyler breathes. For the first time since he closed his eyes and went to the cage at the back of his mind, there seems like a glimmer of hope. God help him, but Tyler might just have some faith in the justice system. “I’d like the help.”

“I don’t think so,” Blurryface chimes in. His hands clench and unclench violently like he wishes he had them wrapped around their throats. “That cockroach is _pro se_. It’s already on the record.”

“Change the record,” Mary says, taking a seat delicately on her folding chair. “The sixth amendment doesn’t just guarantee my client a trial. It gives him the right to have counsel if he wants it, and he clearly wants it. Unless… you are admitting that this trial is a sham. If you’re acknowledging that this is a mockery, then my client would be free to leave—”

“This is no sham,” Blurry says through his teeth. “Have your fucking lawyer, Mr. Joseph. It’s not going to save you.”

“We’ll see about that,” she says.

“Who are you?” Tyler whispers out of the corner of his mouth. It seems impolite to acknowledge that he doesn’t even know his own lawyer’s name. Against the rules, somehow. “I mean, you aren’t really Mary Poppins.”

“No, I’m not really a fictional nanny.” She reaches into her briefcase again and pulls out a nameplate lined in brass that she sits in front of her. In simple lettering, it spells MARY. “But Mary will do. What are my client’s charges?”

“His charges?” The Judge repeats. His eyes flicker to Blurry and then down at his hands, clutching the drumsticks. Awareness creeps over his face—this isn’t going the way Blurry had planned, and it’s going to require more from him than sick beats and killer robes. He shuffles to put the drumsticks into his robes but drops one. It clatters loudly in the courtroom. Spooky winces at the noise (and at Blurry’s furious sigh), stooping out of sight to scramble for the rolling drumstick.

“For fuck’s sake, Spooky,” Blurry hisses. “You’re like a little boy playing dress up in mommy’s heels. Get your shit together.”

The Judge says nothing, but when he reappears (drumsticks stashed away), he looks empty. His shoulders are slumped, bearing none of the presence he entered with, and beneath the bruises and the stitched up pride, he looks tired and sad, watching Blurryface pace with stormy, hopeless eyes.

“Excuse me, is this a circus or a courtroom?” Mary asks. Tyler watches everything quietly, afraid to speak lest it ruin his good luck. “I want to know my client’s charges. The sixth amendment guarantees him that right also.”

“Tyler Robert Joseph is charged with numerous, heinous crimes against the Treehouse and its inhabitants. Most notably, Mr. Joseph is charged with the murder of one Mr. Blurryface, age nine, also known as _Little Blurry, Little Blur, Blur, Blurs, Maggot, Carrion—_ ”

“ _What?_ ” Tyler cries out. “I’m innocent!”

The Judge slaps his palm against the wooden railing of the stand in front of him. The fury is reminiscent of Josh’s violence at the hospital when Tyler stood in between him and Ashley’s flaming bed. While Tyler maintained his calm then (he had to! And Tyler has found that he has a handy trait at keeping his cool when other people are falling apart, a trait that would be even handier if he could use it to keep _himself_ from falling apart), seeing Spooky angry is unsettling. 

“Silence! I warned you once, Mr. Joseph, I won’t warn you again.”

Mary puts a hand on his shoulder, squeezing tightly. The command is silent but obvious: keep your fucking mouth shut, Tyler. When she speaks, her voice is nearly as tight as her grip. “Is that all the charges?”

Blurryface’s eager eyes eat up the expression on their faces, food for his smile. “Is that _all?_ The Carrion was a Level One innocent in the Treehouse. I think the both of us know how serious such charges are. Further charges are as follows: preventing the lawful burial of a dead body and thereby defiling its eternal soul. And…one unpaid parking ticket.”

Tyler gapes. He doesn’t understand half of the terms they are using, but he’d have to be a fool not to get the gist. Little Blurry was innocent, and they were trying to charge Tyler for his death and more.

And that fucking parking ticket. He knew that would come back to haunt him.

His lawyer adjusts the glasses on the bridge of her nose. “If my client were found guilty, what would the sentence be?”

Blurryface smiles. It is more like a vengeful barring of teeth. “ _Death_.”

All the breath feels sapped from Tyler’s lungs. He bends over, elbows propped on the defendant’s table to rest his face in his hands where he can hyperventilate with some semblance of privacy. He peers right to see that his lawyer’s hands are clasped very tightly in her lap, and he knows that this is _Serious_. This is Not Good.

“I think we both know,” Blurryface says smoothly. “That the punishment fits the crime.”

“I—can’t argue with that,” Mary says. “I take it that you have proof? Or did you expect the jury to just accept your _honorable_ word?”

“Oh, I have proof,” Blurry says. He sits on the prosecutor’s table since there is no chair, struggling to stifle his grin. “I have better than proof. I have a star witness. I have someone who was there and saw the crime first hand.”

“No,” Tyler mutters.

“ _Yes_ ,” Blurry laughs. “As my first witness, I call the Honorable Spooky to the stand.”

#

Spooky seems to blossom under Blurryface’s attention. It is a cautious happiness, someone nuzzling the hand that’s hit them. He shrugs off the Judge’s robes to sit in his white basketball shorts at the witness’s stand. Without a shirt, various other bruises are revealed: fingertip shapes on his hips and shoulders, bruises sucked across his ribs and hipbones and collarbones, and various other wounds for which Tyler can think of no explanation. Spooky pokes at a bruise on his wrist in the shape of a handprint, glancing up with blood filled eyes whenever Blurry moves. “Spooks. Do you

“Spooks," he says, looking over from Tyler to Spooky who is practically preening under his attention. "Do you swear to tell the truth?”

“Yes.”

“Good enough for me. We will keep this short and sweet, how does that sound?”

“Sounds good.”

“Did you see who killed Little Blurry?”

“Yes.”

“Point to him.”

Spooky stops poking at his wounds to point a solemn finger at Tyler. “Looked just like him.”

“That’s enough Spooky. Keep it simple, stupid. Tell me what happened.”

“I was painting with Little Blurry.”

“The Carrion. Don’t call him that name.”

“Right. Sorry. The Carrion. We were painting together, and then someone came in.”

“Point to him again. I like it when you point to him.” Spooky points. “Good boy. Go on.”

Spooky points. “Good boy. Go on.”

“Good boy. Go on.”

“The person who came in—”

“Tyler. Let’s call him Tyler.”

“I object,” Mary says, looking just as baffled at this strange interaction as Tyler feels. “Judge. The prosecutor is badgering the witness.”

“Sustained,” Spooky mutters sulkily. The violent look Blurryface gives him makes him _flinch._ “I mean—overruled?”

Blurry exhales malevolently. “Can the witness please continue?”

“Oh, right,” Spooky says. He looks down at his hands. “Anyway. The—Tyler. Tyler came in and he made it so that I couldn’t move. Then, he killed The Carrion and dumped his body outside the window. I was scared, so I made myself wake up. If I hadn’t, he would have killed me too.”

“Anything else, Spooky?”

The Judge shakes his head.

Blurryface turns to the jury and bows at the waist, removing an imaginary top hat and tipping it for show. “I rest my case, and I think the Gasfolk of the jury should as well. This is obviously open-and-shut. Tyler Joseph entered the first treehouse, assaulted the Judge, murdered the Carrion in cold blood and dumped his body from the Treehouse despite knowing that doing so would give the cockroach no rest for his poor six-legged soul. That’s cruelty. A creature such as Mr. Joseph… does not deserve to live. Thank you, Spooky. That’s all.”

The Judge goes to stand, but Tyler’s lawyer stands first. “Excuse me? I have some questions also.”

“Unnecessary,” Blurry says. He holds out his hands together, palms up like he’s holding a book. “Open—” he claps his hands together, sounding like a gunshot in the silent room. “—and shut.”

 “It’s my right to cross-examine your witnesses,” she insists.

Spooky sits timidly, eyes wide and flickering between Blurry and the lawyer. Blurryface hisses under his breath, waving a furious hand that she should continue. He grinds his teeth, pausing every so often to run his tongue along the outside of his teeth. Tyler’s never seen someone perform such mundane tasks with such ferocity and malevolence. Mary’s chair makes no noise on the floor as she scoots away from the table and stands. Instead of pacing, she stands directly in front of the witness stand, close enough to rest a hand on the railing, staring at Spooky who avoids her eyes like she’s Medusa.

“Is Spooky your name?” She asks quietly. “You never said.”

“They call me Spooky,” the Judge mutters.

“And what do you call yourself?”

“I object,” Blurry says lazily. “Relevance?”

“Sustained,” Spooky murmurs.

His lawyer’s lips tighten, but she concedes with a bowing of her head. “Alright. Spooky. You said that the creature who entered the treehouse looked like Mr. Joseph. Is there anyone else here who looks identical to Mr. Joseph?”

Spooky’s eyes flicker to Blurry. He shrugs.

“Please answer verbally.”

“I guess.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes.”

“Who looks like Mr. Joseph?”

“Blurryface.”

“They look extremely similar, don’t they? I might have trouble telling them apart. Have _you_ ever gotten them confused with one another?”

“Once or twice,” Spooky says, slow. “I had a dream once. Tyler was on top of me, but it wasn’t Tyler. It was Blurryface.”

“I object!” Blurry bellows, voice so loud that the courtroom tremors. Tyler has been leaning forward in his chair, listening with rapt attention. Blurryface on top of Josh... and Josh thought it was Tyler? None of that sounded familiar in the slightest. Had Josh dreamed of Blurry and never told him so?

“On what grounds?” Mary asks.

“Relevance? I don’t fucking know! I’m sure I can think of something,” Blurryface says. “I want this line of questioning stricken from the record.”

“Overruled?” Spooky says. He looks at Tyler’s lawyer like he’s asking for permission or seeking some kind of counsel.

“You’re the Judge, Spooky,” she says gently.

“Overruled,” Spooky repeats, a little stronger this time, surprising Tyler and nearly everyone else in the courtroom, including his master.

Blurryface groans, laughing bitterly. He tangles his darkened fingers through his hair, tugging it in every which direction. “Stupid. Back to the drawing board with you, Spooky. Everything will have been child’s play compared to what I will do to you, I swear it—”

“If you can’t be quiet,” Mary says. “Maybe _you’ll_ be held in contempt of court?”

Blurry’s teeth close so quickly that they clack together, the sound echoing in the courtroom. He looks murderous, eyes darkening. For a moment, smoke seems to come from his nostrils, fingers elongating into long, shadowy claws. When he turns his eyes to Tyler, they are brighter than ever, a ruby-red. When Tyler blinks, Blurry is back to normal, a giant’s worth of rage badly concealed inside a body that doesn’t even stand six feet tall.

When it’s clear that Blurry plans to say no more, Mary continues with her questioning. “So, Spooky. Sometimes, you admit that you have trouble telling Tyler and Blurryface apart. Then isn’t it entirely possible that the person you saw who _looked_ like Tyler could very well have been Blurryface?”

Silence reigns again in the courtroom while they wait for Spooky’s answer. The Gasfolk seem to be interested in this exchange—as interested as creatures in gasmasks can look, leaning forward infinitesimally in their pews and juror chairs. There is not a single sound, not a breath or a cough, not a word, but Blurryface’s presence speaks for itself. The creature doesn’t need to speak. His threat looms overhead like a volcano that might explode at any moment.

“I-I plead the fifth,” Spooky says.

“Do you even know what that means?” She asks, not unkindly. “You’ve already given testimony on this subject. You waived the right to plead the fifth. Legally, you have to answer the question now. In theory—the person who killed Little Blurry could have been Blurryface himself, couldn’t it have been?”

“In... in theory.”

Tyler watches, all of his little pains forgotten. The glimmer of hope that was presented upon Mary’s entrance has swelled and is starting to look like the sun. There’s no way he can be convicted when the prosecution’s case has such an obvious fault. Logic demands that he will have to be set free.

“That’s all, Spooky. Thank you, Your Spookiness.” Mary turns to jury panel who sit watching with blank, goggled eyes. “I believe that testimony alone fulfills the argument for reasonable doubt. The eye witness can’t consistently recognize the accused. The defense rests.”

Mary turns to the courtroom. “But as it so happens, my client and I will be countersuing. There is corruption in this Treehouse, and we will seek to have that corruption weeded out. My client has faced unnamable trauma at the hand of whatever creature also killed Little Blurry. Assault. Theft.”

“Theft?” Blurry scoffs.

“Yes! Theft of a heart,” she says sharply. “And you can bet that I will be seeking the heftiest penalties for such a _malignant_ crime.”

On her way back to the defense’s table, she stops to stand in front of Blurryface. Tyler has never seen someone so brave as to look him in the eye—no one except for Josh that day on the bridge. The room is quiet enough that when she speaks, no matter how lowly, her voice carries to the rest of the room.

“You have the right to rebuttal and question the witness again if you’d like, but I suspect that you don’t want to. You’re used to fighting against Joshua and Tyler, but you can’t stand up to those of us who are born and bred of this Treehouse. I’m not so easily cowed, and I’m twice as clever as your usual prey. Whatever game you’re playing? The Top isn’t playing anymore. The Treehouse isn’t ever going to fall to you. For your own sake, end this now.” She leans forward, cups a gentle hand around Blurry’s ear, and whispers something into it briefly, too quiet for anyone to hear. Then she returns to her chair and takes her seat, giving Tyler a warm smile only just tinted with melancholy.

Blurryface takes a long moment. All eyes are on him to see what he will do next. His face looks cold and empty like when Tyler wakes at night in the winter time and creeps to his window to watch the snow fall on the empty backyard. At last, he unfolds himself from his perch on the table, standing to his full height and stepping to the center of the courtroom.

At the Judge’s stand, Spooky has his head in his hands, robes on but open. He looks ashamed and hopeless.

“You make a compelling argument,” Blurry says to Tyler’s lawyer. He smiles. “But I think— between the two of us?—that you are the one underestimating your opponent. You’re viewing this as a game, but this is no game to me. _You_ want to talk about _theft?_ ” Blurryface begins to undress while he speaks, shedding his red suit jacket until it melts into a puddle of crimson fabric at his feet. He loosens the tie and tosses it aside. “What do I get for _my_ suffering? Where is _my_ justice?”

Blurryface finishes unbuttoning his white dress shirt and pauses to undo the cuffs. Tyler squints. The fabric has drifted open to reveal the glint of something underneath, something that shouldn’t be there. At last, his lookalike thrusts the shirt off completely and Tyler and the rest of the courtroom except for Spooky can do nothing but stare.

In the center of Blurryface’s chest rests a metal cage with a lock in the center. The bars are thin as his pinky fingers and loosely spaced. Through them, Tyler can see Blurry’s innards: angry red muscle irritated by the intruding steel, light filtering in through the back of the cage. With the creature’s heaving breaths, the cage shifts against the creaking of his ribs, blood beading at the jagged edges of his skin. “Look at what you made me do. This cage didn’t always have a lock, not until the day that you and those you work for crept in and stole _my_ heart. Where is _my_ justice? This cage was not always empty! _Where is my justice?_ I will find what was stolen from me, and I will take what I have earned through my suffering, and I will bring this entire Treehouse down on all of our heads if it so suits me, because I have nothing to lose anymore.”

Mary’s face is twisted with pity, but Tyler feels none of that. He knows Blurryface better than anyone, and he is beyond pitying. There is nothing in him worthy of it, and the performance his lookalike has just given stirs nothing inside him except for disgust and disturbance. Tyler squints at the cage, trying to get a closer look.

Blurryface shrugs back on the shirt and does the first few buttons. Blood stains it as he turns to the jury. Winded, cheeks red with emotion, he addresses them once more. “I think we’ve heard enough. It’s time for a verdict. If you so please. Raise your left hand if you find Tyler Joseph guilty of the accused crimes. Raise your right hand if you find him innocent.” Tyler holds his breath, never more hopeful.

The hope is destroyed in a single moment, popped violently like a balloon under the duress of needles. Like puppets, every Gasman raises its left hand.

“Dumb bitch,” Blurry sighs with relief, shaking his head. “Did you seriously think that you’d be able to win with logic? A verdict starts with a jury, and this jury belongs to _me_. I don’t think I need to remind you of the sentence I’m pursuing? _Death!_ ”

“What—I—no—the legality of rigging a jury, is—and the Judge always determines the sentencing!”

Tyler has never seen Mary flustered before (she’s always presented herself as the sort of person who cannot be flustered), and to see her so shaken only cements what Tyler knows to be true— that this is very, very bad.

Blurryface laughs. “Not in this court.”

“In all courts! This _is_ a court, isn’t it? Either the Judge determines the appropriate sentence or you acknowledge that this is a farce and my client walks free,” Mary says firmly. “We get to make the rules, but we have to follow them, Blurryface.”

Blurry grinds his teeth, thinking. At last, he turns to Spooky who has not moved. “Fine. Spooky. Look at me— _look at me!_ There you go. They want you to decide what happens to Tyler. Do you remember the sentence we talked about, my useless little alien? I need you to say it. Okay? Say it, Spooky. Say it or so help me, I will tear you apart piece by piece.”

All eyes rest on the Judge. The blood in his eye makes it hard to tell if he’s been crying until he puts both of his hands down away from his face like a child chastised for having their elbows on the table at dinner. His face is surprisingly dry and emotionless for withstanding Blurryface’s threats, but not even a rock can withstand the constant pressure of the ocean forever.

“What’s the question again?” Spooky asks.

“The sentencing. Death, remember? You just have to say so.”

Spooky’s face is blank like a stone. “I get to choose?”

Blurryface rolls his eyes. “Does a dog choose to sit when its master tells it too? In theory, _maybe_ , but in reality, what choice does the well-trained dog have?”

“Right,” the Judge says.

“Josh,” Tyler breathes.

“Your Spookiness,” the Judge mumbles.

“No,” Tyler says. “You’re Josh remember? Josh Dun.”

“Is a cube made of sixes just because that’s where it lands?” Spooky asks.

“I don’t know what means. I just know that you’re Josh. You’re in control here. Not Blurryface. If you have to give me a sentence, give me—give me community service. Give me anything but death. Please.”

“Spooky,” Blurry chimes in lowly. “You know what to do. Say it. Death. Say it. _Or else._ ”

Spooky stares at his hands. He looks like a rope tugged between two fierce competitors, frayed and on the verge of giving out completely. At last, he speaks: “For the death of Little Blurry, your sentence is—community service. Already served.”

Tyler nearly shouts with joy. Mary breathes a sigh of relief next to him and reaches out to pat his hand comfortingly.

But Spooky isn’t finished. “For the unpaid parking ticket, your sentence is life in prison.”

There is an uproar in the court. At once, half a dozen Gasmen are surrounding Tyler, pulling him up and off of his chair, wrenching his arms behind his back painfully and pushing him away from the table. He glances back at his lawyer but she hasn’t moved from her seat, staring, stunned, at Spooky on the stand.

“Josh!” Tyler shouts, struggling to be heard over the noise. “Josh Dun! Don’t do this to me! Don’t let them take me!”

Spooky shrugs his shoulders, tangling his fingers in his hair, the picture of tortured uncertainty.

Tyler is forcefully dragged down the familiar hallway, only this time he kicks and screams and fights as much as his exhausted body will let him, and it is hard fought when they throw him into the same, barren room as before, shutting the steel door behind them. The light is flicked off, and Tyler is bathed in darkness. He doesn’t know whether to scream or to cry or to crack his skull against the floor and hope for death. That seems to be the only hope he has left—the hope for absolution.

A slot in the door opens, a narrow panel of light seeping into the room.

“Tyler,” Mary whispers. “Tyler listen to me. This is so against the rules, but it’s very, very important. What you saw—you can’t tell anyone. No one, not ever. Do you understand? I can’t stay, Tyler. I have to go now, but I _will_ send someone for you. We will fight this. You aren’t alone. Please don’t forget that.”

The panel slides shut before Tyler can reply, and the darkness returns, just as dark as before.


	27. Two Swallows in the Storm

Tyler’s high school holds its yearly Talent Show in March, just as all the snow in Columbus is melting. The gymnasium is filled with rows of folding chairs, linoleum wet and squeaking from the slush tracked in on sneakers and warm boots. Coats are shed and left on the backs of chairs as placeholders while people mingle and make conversation, discussing the upcoming acts in the paper programs passed out at the door. Somewhere out there is his family: his parents and his brothers and sister, here to cheer him on—and potentially assist in his act, if necessary.

The stage is beautiful, a thick red velvet curtain draping down to obstruct the audience’s view. There is a smell to the stage, greasepaint left over from the plays held biannually, the faint scent of moths and old clothes from the donated costumes that fill up the prop room. It gives Tyler the feeling of nostalgia even though he has never performed in such plays. He’s never even performed in the talent show.

Until this year.

His ukulele rests in its case, and he refuses to set it down. It’s tuned to perfection, and sometimes he removes it and holds it just to feel the weight in his hands, the strings under his calloused fingers. He’s been practicing for weeks, trying to decide whether to perform a well-known favorite or to risk performing an original piece. In the end, he decided to give a rendition of an old Elvis hit, sure to be a favorite with the older audience that attends the event yearly. His own works are too personal, and he doesn’t think that anyone would understand them, anyway.

The curtain parts and the adrenalin rises. The theater teacher is announcing acts: kids with guitars and stand-up comedians and a girl with tap shoes that click pleasingly with every step and shift she makes. Time crawls and moves too quickly all in one, and when they call his name to perform, the adrenalin makes his hands shake and palms sweat and he nearly drops the ukulele—

—but he can’t help but feel like he was born to do this. He’s been in the public eye all of his life, whether it’s on the basketball court or playing the piano at church. There are nerves in his stomach, but nothing like the girl who cried halfway through her poetry reading and had to leave the stage early. Under the lights, in front of the people, there’s a strange part of him that says he _belongs_ here.

“My name’s Tyler Joseph,” he says into the microphone, adjusting it slightly for his height. “And if you know this song, feel free to sing along. Just don’t sing better than me, okay?”

There’s some chuckling and shifting in seats as Tyler adjusts his grip on the ukulele, and then he is strumming the first notes, beginning his rendition of the Elvis song. Like he suspected, there are older couples in the audience immediately sharing looks of nostalgia, wrinkled smiles and patting hands.

And on the last chorus, he hears Zack in the back of the gym (the way he promised to do, if no one else would), hands cupped up around his mouth like a megaphone. Tyler has to sing through his smile, struggling not to laugh at his brother, but the trend has caught on and other people are joining in until nearly the whole room is singing along, almost two hundred people swaying and ignoring the cracks in their voices and whether they’re on key or not just to sing with him, and he’s leading them, he’s _leading them_ , and when the song ends, the entire room explodes in applause.

Laughing, Tyler steps away from the microphone to soak it in, the smiles, the standing ovation, the thunderous sound of two hundred pairs of hands acknowledging him and his skill and his worthiness. Even when the applause begins to die down, his smile feels immovable.

Then, the applause ends, but there is still one person clapping. Tyler stops smiling slowly, eyes scanning the room for whomever is still applauding him. Everyone else is turning in their chairs, craning their necks to peer over each other and catch a glimpse of who it is. At last, his eyes land on someone standing in the far back corner, swathed in shadow, clapping robustly through the silence. He squints but can’t for the life of him make out the person’s face.

Tyler jumps off of the stage, handing his ukulele to the first person he encounters in the audience, shoving it into their hands without checking for permission. The clapping continues, marred by the confused murmurs of the crowd. Tyler is pushing his way through, shifting around chairs and jogging down aisles.

“He came,” Tyler breathes, unsure why those words come to mind, unsure who he’s talking about. “He’s here.”

But the crowd seems to thicken and it becomes nearly impossible to push past them all. Tyler feels like a slave led out of Egypt who didn’t cross the Red Sea quick enough and now the waters are _un_ parting and crashing down around him. Over the rushing of the water, he can still hear the staccato clapping echoing off of the rafters above his head, and he feels close—so close to finding

him—

“ _WAKE UP!_ ”

His eyes open to see someone bent over him, someone who looks just like him but is oddly foreign. Does Tyler have a twin? Does he have a brother? One of those sounds right, but he can’t figure out which. There is a throbbing in his skull, a chaffing on his wrists which are restrained down by his sides.

Someone else calls out from beyond Tyler’s vision. “I think it worked, Mr. B.”

“It didn’t fucking work,” the one who looks like Tyler says. He reaches out. Dangling on a mechanical, maneuverable arm positioned over Tyler’s chest is a screen that hovers just above his sternum. Playing back on the screen (like it’s some kind of _television_ that can see inside of him) are black and white images of him running, pushing through the crowd at the talent show searching for _someone_. “Didn’t you see that part at the end? He’s still in there. We’ll have try again. Schedule him for another session tomorrow afternoon.”

“So soon?”

“The sooner the better,” Mr. B says, he’s wearing dark gloves tight enough to cling to his fingernails and pull firmly across his knuckles. He removes a cigarette case from his the breastpocket on his dress shirt and balances an unlit cigarette at the corner of his mouth, searching for a lighter. “Ten years of no results would make anyone antsy. No more Mr. Patient Guy.”

“What’s going on?” Tyler asks. For some reason, there are tears in his eyes. “Where’s my mom? Is she outside? Can you bring her in for a minute? I—I think I’m late for church. Please get my mom for me.”

Mr. B rolls his eyes, finding his lighter and clicking it alight. The sound makes Tyler flinch, but he doesn’t know why. “Every fucking time. _Where’s my mommy? Bring me my mommy!_ I can’t take this crybaby act. Drop him off back at his cell for me. Let me know if he doesn’t eat his dinner.” The figure that moves closer is terrifying, dressed in a puffy white hazmat suit that crinkles with his every movement and a gasmask that makes it look inhuman. All Tyler can see in the dark glossy lenses of its eyes is his own tearful reflection, head shaved, face thin. He takes it back: he and Mr. B don’t look as much alike as he thought.

“What’s wrong with me?” Tyler asks. “Why are you wearing that suit? Am I sick? Please let me see my mom. For just one minute, please.”

The creature ignores him, undoing the tie restraints at his ankles and wrists. There is a rickety wheelchair that the man in the mask helps ease Tyler in to, which is actually quite helpful. For some reason, Tyler’s legs look thin like matchsticks through his the pants of his orange jumpsuit which drips off of his thin frame. His head feels so weak that he lets it loll backwards and stares at the ceiling while he is pushed along.

The more time that passes, the more Tyler remembers.

When the wheelchair stops, it takes all of his strength to lift his head back into place. They are outside of a cell. It takes an old fashioned key to open the door of bars, and Tyler is gently escorted in and to his bed with the moth-eaten, worn blanket that doesn’t keep him nearly as warm in the winter time as he would like. The cell is small, six by six with nothing but a bed and a toilet and the space in between. On the walls are worn pictures drawn long ago: trees and almondshaped eyes that haunt his dreams. As soon as the Gasman is gone, Tyler shifts his aching body over to the far wall where, high above him, a window rests. Through it, he can see the moon and hear the roar of the ocean.

Using his fingernail, he carves a mark in the wall. Why are the walls here made of planks of weathered wood? That doesn’t seem very prison like, but it admittedly makes it easier to keep track of his time here. The thought of his nails scratching at the concrete makes him cringe. Five, ten, twenty, one hundred, one thousand, three thousand, and more. And one more.

Just another day in this prison.

#

Every day when he wakes. Every night as he tries to fall asleep. When he’s in the wheelchair on the way to shock therapy and any time in between that he has his wits about him, there are a few things that Tyler repeats, like maybe saying them is enough to hold on to them.

“I’m Tyler Joseph,” he whispers to himself. “I have a family, and they love me even if they don’t come to visit. Mom loves me. Dad, Zack, Jay, Maddie loves me. I can play basketball. I can write songs. I can sing. I have a friend. His name is Josh, and he is real. He is real. He is real.”

#

Tyler knows more about the prison where he is held than what his captors think he knows. He is on the first floor, but there are more floors, because on his way back from therapy three times a week, the Gasmen take him on the same loping trip past the elevator. It looks old and out of service, but it is unmistakable. There might be other wings of the prison where prisoners are held, but Tyler suspects there aren’t. He’s never once seen another human except for Blurryface and the ones in the gasmasks. When he passes the rows of cells on the way to his own, they are all empty. Whatever crime he’s committed, apparently its punishment is not only prison but solitary confinement.

To make the time pass, Tyler fills the cells with people. He imagines that in one of the cells is a girl with hair like fire. Tucked between her mattress and the bedframe are letters, worn from touch and faded in some spots with tears. They’re from an old lover. Every day when the Gasmen come by, she hopes that they will bring her mail: more letters for the pile. They never do. Tyler knows how she feels. His parents always seem to forget to write to him. And Josh… Josh probably forgets to label the address correctly. Or something. That sounds like something he’d do. He’s probably kicking himself for it, chuckling when the mail get returns. _I’ll get it right next time,_ he probably says.

The cell beside his own houses a boy with green hair like forest trees who talks to Tyler all through the night. They make conversations about their lives before they came here, and it makes time pass. The boy lives in a faraway place that Tyler will never get to visit, one with sunlight and warmth and city streets of old, weathered brick. _Why are you here?_ the boys asks him, and Tyler changes the subject because he can’t remember. That’s a side effect of the therapy. Sometimes, he forgets things.

Not his family, though. Never them.

And not Josh, either.

In a cell beyond his is Josh. Josh is more of a drummer and less of a talker, so he lets his drums do the talking for him, turning over the food trays the Gasmen bring him and dragging the mattress off of his bed to bang out beats with his silverware on the metal frame. The beats match Tyler’s heart—or does his heart skip to match the beats? In that manner, Josh will talk to him all through the night, and Tyler tries to talk back because keeping himself distracted is the only way to keep his head above water.

But sometimes when it’s night time and his throat hurts from talking out loud to _no one_ all day, he’s forced to whisper instead until his lips are dry and cracked. Eventually he finds that he can’t say another word, not with his numb tongue and not in his numb mind. He tries to conjure pictures of his family, instead. Their faces are stuck in time, unchanging. Is Zack taller than Tyler yet? Is Maddie’s hair still blonde, or turning brunette? He traces the well-remembered features in his mind. Then, he thinks of Josh, and he’s ashamed to say that _he is starting to forget exactly what Josh looks like_.

There is something about Josh’s nose… but what? And his smile—it’s amazing. But how? He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to remember, tries to hold on. Tyler isn’t sure why Blurryface and the other Gasmen think it’s so important for Tyler’s therapy that he let go of Josh. Consequently, he isn’t sure why he tries to hold on so tightly, either.

Despite what Blurryface wants him to think. Josh is real. Josh is _real_. Tyler remembers him.

And that night, he comes for Tyler.

#

A key in the lock, metal scraping against metal. It jerks Tyler from his fitful sleep, where he was having dreams of shadows and the sun. Sometimes the Gasmen will come for him in the middle of the night, and he has learned through experience that it makes things so much easier to cooperate.

Tyler rolls onto his side and pushes up, wiping a sleepy fist at his eyes.

He looks out into the hallway, prepared to see the vacant goggle-eyes of the Gasmen, and it feels like a bolt of lightning creeps through the window and strikes him. There is no Gasman. Just a boy standing in the open doorway, backlit from the fluorescent lights of the hallway that never turn off. It’s a figure that Tyler hasn’t seen in so long, but one that he could never forget (how could he forget?).

“Josh,” he whispers. “You’re so late.”

“Sorry,” Josh whispers. He steps into the cell. “This is where they’re keeping you? This is terrible, Ty. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay. Josh. I don’t think—whatever reason I’m here? I don’t think I did it. I think I’m innocent.”

“I know. I’m here to get you out. Can you stand up?”

And there’s no way that Tyler should be able to stand. He’s been refusing the food here for as long as he can remember, refusing until they knock him out and puts tubes down his nose and IV’s in his arms to force feed him, but for Josh? The strength in his legs seems to return with a flood of adrenalin. He stands and Josh is holding out his hand to help and it’s so _warm_. God it’s so cold here, but Josh is so warm.

“Come into the light,” Tyler says in a frantic whisper. “I want to see your face. I keep forgetting

it.”

Josh comes into the light, and it all comes back to Tyler. Josh’s nose is prominent and sloped, giving such character to his face. It scrunches when he smiles, and his smile brings the sunlight like it rests there behind his teeth. The older boy’s face is tired but so fucking pleased, hair a mess of dark curls matted to his forehead. Tyler begins to cry.

“What’s wrong?” Josh asks, smile wiped away. “Where does it hurt?”

“All over,” Tyler says through his tears. “Yes. It’s hurts all over. I thought you were never coming. Blurryface said that you weren’t real and I began to believe him.”

“How could you think that? How could you think that I wouldn’t come to save you?” Josh whispers.

“They shock me,” Tyler replies pitifully. “They put me to sleep and then they shock my brain. When I wake up, everything feels funny, and I can’t remember where I’m at or why I’m here or who anyone is and—and—I, I get so—”

Josh hushes him, cupping a warm hand on his jaw. God, Tyler is so cold. The warmth from Josh threatens to reach all the way into his bones, and Tyler wants to let it. God he wants to let it. “It’s okay. You don’t need to talk about it yet. Let’s get out of here first, huh?”

“Please,” Tyler whispers. “But how?”

“I’ve been watching this place for weeks. You’re the only prisoner in this place, and when you’re sleeping, they all go into the basement. There is no security. Isn’t that mad? They never expected me to come for you. I walked in through the front door—and that’s how we’ll get out. Sound good?”

“Sounds perfect.”

They walk through the halls together hand in hand. Tyler associates this walk, this journey with helplessness. Usually he makes this trek in a wheelchair, exhausted from starvation or half-present from the shock therapy. Walking this path with Josh is so empowering, their soft soled shoes making the quietest whispers on the concrete floors. They take the familiar route but pass by the therapy room instead of stopping there, and then it is Josh who leads with warm steady hands and encouraging smiles.

At last, the front doors are ahead. Tyler cranes his head. Now would be the perfect time for Blurryface to appear, to pop out from inside of a closet or come creeping out of an air vent. Since there is no sign of human life here, maybe he is waiting just outside the prison doors to put both of them in custody…only prison wouldn’t be so bad, then. Not if Josh were there.

The doors open, and there is a breeze and the scent of the ocean. The prison is next to the sea, the smell of salt and wind and sand still warm from the sun. The fresh air on Tyler’s face is better than any therapy, nearly as good as _Josh_ , who squeezes his hand tighter. There is no Blurryface.

“Look,” Josh says, pointing above them. “The moon. That’s sick.”

“So sick,” Tyler whispers, eyes closed. _I’m in love with you,_ he wants to say, but chickens out. All those nights in his cell thinking about the time they lost while Tyler clung to things like dictionary terms instead of acknowledging his feelings and seeing where they could lead—those nights have haunted him. Maybe they wouldn’t have worked, if Tyler had never been arrested and if their relationship had ever been given a chance. But they’ve spent the last decade apart—they are both grown men, now—and there’s an old saying that absence makes the heart grow fonder. God, it does. So much fonder.

“ _You’re_ sick,” he whispers instead of admitting how he feels. Maybe he’s not so much a man as he thought. What makes a man? His age, or is it more?

“ _SICK!_ ”

Tyler’s eyes crack open. There is the foul taste of vomit in his mouth and he turns his head to spit lazily. Mr. B is there looking on the verge of a seizure spawned by fury. He’s dressed in a white button down shirt and the skinniest black tie that Tyler’s ever seen, black gloves firmly in place. “Where’s Josh?” Tyler slurs.

“There is no Josh, you little fool,” Mr. B says through his crooked teeth. “How much longer are you going to insist on believing in this delusion? There is no Josh. Your little fantasy is only keeping you from getting better. Don’t you want to get better, Tyler? Do you _like_ getting shocked?”

“I—want my mom,” Tyler says. He begins to cry. “Is she outside? I think I’m late for church.”

Mr. B groans, reaching a hand up to scrub at his face violently. When he speaks, it’s to the Gasman on the other side of the room who has been working the machines. “I don’t care if he got sick. I want to see results. Schedule him again for tomorrow morning. I’ll turn his fucking brain into potato chips if that’s what it takes. Get him out of my sight.”

By the time he is dropped off back at his cell, he remembers that what he saw while asleep wasn’t true. He has those dreams sometimes: fantasies that Josh will show up like some sort of knight in shining armor to rescue him. Why can’t he ever remember that? Why can’t he remember _during_ the dreams that they aren’t true? Why do they always have to feel so real?

For a long time, Tyler just lays on his bed without the strength to move. He is tired of making marks on the wall, tired of counting down the days to nothing. Eventually, he slips off of the bed and crawls there, resting his cheek against the rough wood and reaching up with his hand to scratch the latest day out of existence.

#

“Do you want to get better, Tyler?” Blurryface asks. Once a week they have therapy that consists of more than machines and anesthesia that makes him dizzy and shocks that give him headaches.

They are in a comfortable looking office complete with plush carpets and warm lighting. But why are the walls made of planks of wood? Tyler can’t remember. Behind Blurry’s desk is a window that takes up nearly the entire wall, with a beautiful view of the tragically steep Cliffside and the troubled sea.

“What’s wrong with me, again?” Tyler asks. “I forgot. I’m sick?”

Blurryface sighs. He’s folding a piece of paper into quarters and then diagonal quarters. The paper is a crisp white that’s nearly painful to look at. He’s making an animal. That’s all he ever makes, but Tyler can’t remember what kind. In these rooms, Blurryface pretends to be a different person: one who cares about Tyler and hurts him for his own good. “You’re very sick, Tyler. Tell me about Josh again.”

“Why?”

“Because! We don’t get over our sickness by sweeping it under the rug. We have to take the rug outside and beat it with a broom.”

“That…makes sense,” Tyler lies. “Josh is Josh. I don’t know what you want me to say. He writes me letters sometimes, but I think that he forgets to put on the right postage. Or maybe he doesn’t know the address? Can you get it to him? I’d really like to hear from him. I miss him so much.”

“Josh isn’t real, Tyler.” Blurryface sits down the origami he’s creating—it’s a bird, of course it’s a bird—and folds his hands in front of him, elbows resting on the cherry wood desk. “Listen to me. You were brought here because you committed a very terrible crime. You couldn’t come to terms with what you’d done, it was so heinous. Sometimes to avoid losing our minds, we lose our minds. You believed yourself innocent, and to cement that delusion, you created Josh as this—this _hero_ who would come to save you.”

“I knew a Josh, once,” Tyler insists. He twists his hands together anxiously in his lap. “Before I came here. I think we were friends. ”

“Friends come to visit friends,” Blurryface says. “Friends call each other. Do you see that phone, Ty? That one on the corner of my desk? That one is just for you. When they locked you up, I gave that special number to all of your family and friends so that they could get in contact with you. Do you know this? That phone never rings. Not ever. If this _Josh_ existed—if he cared for you the way that you seem to think that he does, why would he never come to visit? Why wouldn’t he pick up the phone and dial a simple number just to ask me how you’re doing?”

Tyler doesn’t answer. He can’t answer. His head feels so weak, like it’s liable to fall off of his neck at any moment.

Blurryface frowns at Tyler’s lack of response. “I think we’re finished for today. Think over what I said, Tyler. That’s your special homework. Okay? I’ll call someone to come and escort you back to your cell. No, no—don’t try to get up on your own. Jesus, you’ll fall right over. Just sit. It will only take a moment.”

#

That night in his cell, he goes over the words again.

“I’m Tyler Joseph,” he whispers to himself. “I have a family, and they love me even if they don’t come to visit. Mom loves me. Dad, Zack, Jay, Maddie loves me. I can play basketball. I can write songs. I can sing. I have a friend. His name is Josh, and he is real. He is real. He is real.”

Tyler believes in the power of those words less and less.

#

Tyler is being pushed in the wheelchair. One of the wheels is just slightly more oval than round, which makes for a rickety ride, a discord in the journey that feels a little like Chinese water torture, a persistent _drip drip drip_ on the back of his mind. The more he tries to ignore it, the more he thinks about it. He contemplates trying to make conversation with the Gasman pushing the chair (if the bumpy ride isn’t driving him insane also, then that’s proof enough that these creatures aren’t human), but previous efforts to communicate have reaped no results, and it would probably just be energy wasted.

Energy here is such a precious commodity.

When he is back in his room, he curls up on his bed and tugs the threadbare blanket over himself, shivering. He can’t properly measure the passing of the seasons (just the marking of the scratches on the wall), but tonight is _cold_. Is it fall? Winter? Sometimes in the winter, snow will fall into his window and dust the floor beneath it.

_Tap, tap, tap._

Tyler holds his breath. If he tries hard enough, he can hear the rush of the sea and the beating of his heart. Did he imagine that noise? Sometimes he sits in the quiet for so long that he begins to hear things. The noise comes again: three rapid taps. It’s coming from _underneath his bed._

His mattress sits on a rusted metal frame, and the frame itself sits a meager ten inches off of the floor. It doesn’t give much room for anyone to hide—but any _thing?_ Tyler edges to side of his bed, wincing at the terrible creaking of the springs underneath him. Holding his breath as if he’s about to plunge into water, he leans off of the side, blood rushing to his upside-down head to look at what might be beneath him.

The warmest brown eyes stare back from a dusty face.

“Josh,” he breathes.

“Tyler!” Josh shimmies out from underneath the metal frame of the bed. “I wasn’t sure if I’d chosen the right room. God, look at you. You’re so thin. Are they feeding you?”

“Two whole meals a day,” Tyler says. “The next one should be any minute. What the heck are you doing under there?”

Josh gapes. Dust clings to his black tank-top but he doesn’t seem concerned. “What do you mean what am I doing? I’m busting you out! I’m only sorry that I couldn’t come sooner.”

“We’re getting out of here?” Tyler asks, a hand creeping over his mouth to smother his smile and laughter, laughter that is bubbling up in his chest and threatening to break the seal of his hand and fill the room with iridescent bubbles. “Thank God. Oh, thank God. How, though? We are locked in. Do you have a key? Should we wait for a Gasman to come? Should we ambush him? I don’t know if I’m strong enough—”

“No, no, we can leave the same way I came in,” Josh says. “We will just go out the window.”

Tyler glances to the window in the wall. It’s barely twelve inches wide and six inches tall, metal bars fixed every four inches. He couldn’t even squeeze his head through there, much less his shoulders or hips. “Josh,” he says doubtfully. “How’d you get in through there?”

“ _Birds_. Come on, Ty. Let’s do a magic trick.” Josh stands and holds out a hand, and there’s no way that anyone’s skin should be so warm. Against his will, Tyler takes the hand and presses it against his cheek. Josh allows his limb to be pulled along by the younger man’s whims. Against his face, Josh’s skin is so warm it’s nearly feverish.

“Alright,” he says at last, blushing a little. He lets go of Josh’s hand, suddenly very aware of how weird it is to rub another guy’s hand all over his face. “What do I do? How do I become a bird?”

“Just do what I do,” Josh says. “Think really hard about _you_.”

Tyler closes his eyes and does what Josh’s suggests. It’s painful to close his eyes to Josh after all this time—it’s like his eyes are thirsty for the other man. Having to show restraint is almost painful. He thinks about Josh, about how he looks like he hasn’t aged a day in ten years and how the wild curl of his hair is mixed with dustbunnies. A strange feeling comes over his skin, an itching and swelling like he is being poured into a different mold, a mold too tiny for him.

And it is just like Josh said. The sights are strange: colors he’s never seen before and cannot even name, a rapid fluttering in his chest and an incredible _lightness_ like just thinking a buoyant thought could carry him away into the clouds.

A noise, melodic has his head snapping towards the window. Perched there is a white bird with the shape of a Swallow. Though his brain doesn’t know what to do, taking flight seems to be entirely muscle memory for his body. He slips through the bars of the window easily, following the white Swallow out of the prison.

Into the night they burst, the smell of ocean and sand and stars in his lungs. The wind ruffles his feathers and his heart as he swoops, tucking his wings to skim the surface of the ocean and beating them frantically to outreach the waves. The white Swallow follows, their flight patterns weaving in and out. This is freedom. This is what it means to exist. He would give up all the rest of his life just to stay this way with Josh. In this form, he doesn’t have to worry about saying something inappropriate, some promise of love or loyalty, some sweet thing that makes his heart and his teeth hurt.

And just like that, a shot rings out. The white Swallow that has swooped ahead of him goes limp, twisting in the air, and begins to fall.

Another shot, and this time it is his own body that jerks—

He wakes up blind with pain, tears streaming from his eyes and the taste of sickness in his throat.

“Say it!” Mr. B is shouting above him, a hand wrapping around his forearm until the bones grind together. He pounds on the screen over Tyler’s chest where a Red and a White Swallow float on the foam of the ocean, dead. “I’ve coddled you enough, and I will stand for it no more. Say what you know is true. Say it or I will turn these machines on and fry your brain extra crispy while you’re awake. You know that I will!”

The dam inside of him breaks. He has suffered through one-too-many disappointments, woken up from his dreams about Josh one too many times, held his breath trying to listen for the ringing of a phone that might mean Josh is calling for him once too often. It’s too much for one man to take, but covered in his own tears and snot and vomit, Tyler hardly feels like a man anyway.

“He’s not real,” Tyler breaks. “Josh isn’t real. I know that. I’m sorry. He’s not real. He’s not real.”

Mr. B sighs. He releases his grip on Tyler’s arm but it still aches fiercely. He breathes through his nose trying to reign in his frantic breaths, running his fingers through Tyler’s sweaty hair affectionately. The slick gloves tug on his greasy strands. Tyler hasn’t felt a kind touch in all the days he’s been here and maybe all of the days before, and is it so wrong to crave the hand that hurts him? Is it so wrong to crave any hand, even if it’s a hand that hurts him? “Good boy,” Mr. B whispers. “I think that we’ve finally reached an understanding.”

That night, it takes longer for the memories to return. Tyler takes weak, lurching steps around his cell wondering where his bedroom closet is, wondering if his mother already came to pick up his dirty clothes and if it might be too late to slip this filthy orange jumpsuit into the mix to be washed. It isn’t until he’s looking out the window at the moon that he remembers: he’s not home. He has no home anymore.

Where is his family? What are they doing right this moment? Curled up together in the living room watching television perhaps, or sitting around the table eating one of his mother’s home-cooked meals. Is there still an empty seat left for him, or have they forgotten him? He thinks about that phone on the edge of Blurry’s desk gathering dust and it hurts. He wishes the dust would gather that way over his heart, but it’s constant beating and breaking keeps it dust-free and prime for hurting.

Stooping down, he scratches another day lost, and it’s the hardest one yet. But as hard as his day is, the night seems even worse. An uneaten tray of food sits by his bed smelling like wild rice and some sort of poultry. The scent isn’t unpleasing, but it gnaws at and amplifies the hollow feeling in his stomach. He tries to imagine the other people that might be in the cells next to him—he’s determined to have the girl with flames for hair receive a letter from her lover—but the whole thing feels childish.

He _is_ childish. Maybe the things that Blurryface said are true. Maybe Tyler’s desire for comfort is detrimental to his mental health. All this time, he thought that holding on to the idea of Josh was helping him, like Josh was a beacon, a lighthouse, a buoy in the wild sea during a storm, but maybe Josh is the storm.

Tyler wants to get better. He wants the pain to stop. He wants to hold on to the meager happy memories that he has left. The night passes and he doesn’t sleep, too caught up in his own mind, thinking, letting go. He’s had ten years to come to terms with his feelings for Josh, to learn that who he is is _always_ who he is, whether it has a title or not. He’s had ten years to regret not allowing himself to take a chance with the first person he ever cared about in any sense beyond familial or platonically.

And that boy isn’t even _real_.

“I’m Tyler Joseph,” he whispers to rising sun when it peers through the tiny window and through the cracks in the wooden planks of the outside facing wall. “I have a family, and they love me even if they don’t come to visit. Mom loves me. Dad, Zack, Jay, Maddie loves me. I can play basketball. I can write songs. I can sing.”

For a moment, it feels like there are more words to say, but there aren’t. When the Gasmen bring him a fresh tray for breakfast, Tyler eats every single bite.

#

Tyler makes a new set of marks beneath the others. These marks represent the days since he decided to recover, and there are thirty-three of them now. That’s just over twice the amount of weight he’s gained now that he forces himself to each the two meals a day that are delivered to him in his cell. He takes down the drawings above his bed, half-formed almond eyes and forests thick with trees all in smeared charcoal. He wads the papers up and forces them out of the bars of his window one by one. Let the wind have them. Maybe the wind can find use for them, because god knows that Tyler couldn’t.

 _Recovery is a choice_ , Blurryface has said so many times. For the first time, Tyler is choosing to get better. Taking the memories he has of Josh, he finds a room in the back of his mind and locks them away. He is choosing to give up the mental weapons that he uses to hold his mind hostage in time.

In therapy, Tyler chooses to listen to what Blurryface says and to talk about the things Blurryface asks him to—even if those things are painful, shameful, and embarrassing. Blurryface seems to enjoy listening to Tyler spill his deepest, darkest secrets (and he especially enjoys breaking Tyler down to tears, as if the tears are pleasurable to him). He tells Tyler that _no pain_ means _no gain_ , and that he shouldn’t shy away from the things that hurt. He must turn towards them.

All in all, recovery is a lot of meals spent with his teeth clenched trying not to vomit. It’s a lot of nights spent pacing his cell or doing push-ups until his arms tremble so that he doesn’t try to talk to imaginary people in the other cells. Recovery is a lot of pretending to be thankful after each therapy session, wiping tears and snot off of his face and smiling and saying _Thanks, Blurryface._

_I’ve got so much to think over. I think we made some real progress though. What do you think?_

It’s biting back words about Josh, stopping thoughts of Josh when they’re half-formed, and answering that question the way that he’s supposed to whenever he’s asked: Is Josh real? _Of course not!_

It turns out that recovery is all lies.

#

He’s being wheeled back to his cell, head throbbing with electricity. When his neck can’t support the weight of his skull and all the sad thoughts in it, he leans it back and lets it rest against the wheelchair while he moves. Passing down the hallway lined with cells, he catches sight of Josh standing behind the bars two cells away from his own.

“Tyler,” Josh whispers, saluting with two fingers.

“You’re not real,” Tyler whispers back even though they’ve already passed each other. He forces his head to face forward where there will hopefully be no more hallucinations. “You’ll have to try harder than that to convince me.”

When he wakes up, his face is wet and warm with blood that’s leaked from his nose and dripped down his cheeks. Mr. B is above him, grinning, a gloved-palm resting on the screen over Tyler’s chest. He looks away to meet eyes with the Gasman operating the machines and lets out a loud laugh.

“Good boy!” He says, leaning down to place a smacking kiss on Tyler’s cheek. His lips come away tinged with blood, but when he smiles, Tyler makes sure to smile back. Mr. B disappears for a moment and when he returns, he’s dangling two thin pieces of wire off of his index fingers.

“What are those?” Tyler slurs.

“Now that we’ve squashed out that imaginary worm, we can start really digging in the dirt for the things that matters. These should help jog your memory about a certain _heart_.” His look-alike squints, scrutinizing Tyler’s expression after lacing that word with double meaning, but whatever he sees dissatisfies him. Tyler has absolutely no idea what he’s talking about. Sighing, Mr. B (Blur, something? Why does that word keep coming to mind when he looks at himself?) reaches beneath the table and brings up an oxygen mask, fixing it over Tyler’s mouth and nose. “Don’t worry about it, Ty. Just breathe in. Nice and big. There you go.”

There is darkness.

#

In the middle of the ocean is a storm, and in the middle of the storm is wooden house rotted from exposure to the sea. The roof has holes big enough for fists to fit through, but instead of fists, water comes down, tinkling into pots place precariously to capture the precious salt-free rain. The little structure can barely be called a house—what with the holes in the roof, the unlatched door, and the fact that it is barely large enough for a grown man to lay down and stretch out in without touching one of the walls.

But Josh is just a little shorter than the average man, so he fits well enough. He and his sister, Ashley, lay back to back, shivering in the cold on the dirt floor of the shack. They share what warmth they can find, and take what sleep they can get. Most nights, neither are in great supply.

He wakes up to Ashley elbowing him sharply in the back. In the pitch darkness, he reaches out and grabs the gun they keep next to their heads, tearing it free of the plastic bag they use to keep the wet ocean spray off of it.

“J,” she shouts. “It’s okay. Nobody’s here.”

“What the fuck.” Josh wipes raindrops from his forehead, or is it sweat? “You can’t wake a man up in the middle of the night like that for no good reason.”

“You were screaming to wake the devil. How’s that for a good reason? Jesus. Go back to bed.”

But Josh is already awake and moving to the window. He can see nothing outside—not the rain, not the ocean, not the tiny prison far, far in the distance. For all he knows, there might as well be nothing out there. Maybe the storm picked them up and tossed them far, far away. Space would be nice. A black hole would be even better. _We’re not in Kansas, anymore._

“Why were you screaming?” Ashley asks quietly through the darkness. She stands up too, and he hears her bones creak. She’s barely twenty-six, too young to have creaking bones. “Another dream?”

“Electricity. It was in my brain.”

“Was it real? Is Tyler…?”

Josh doesn’t answer the question. He moves to the rickety stairs at the corner of the room. One day they’ll give out under his weight, but he hopes that day isn’t _to_ day. “I’m going up. Make some soup or something, there’s no chance the fire will be seen through this storm.”

“Yeah, not a fire could be seen nor anything else! Jesus, Josh! Be careful up there.”

The wood creaks under his every step. There is no upstairs, really. The second floor was torn out years ago, plank by plank. All that remains is a small platform by the window, where a telescope rests. He feels for it in the dark, knowing the familiar brass knobs just by touch. It is perfectly adjusted, and all he needs to do is squint into the proper end.

Blurryface is awake, pacing in his office. It’s hard to see precisely through all of the rain, but the figure is the right height, thin enough, and obviously troubled. The cellphone in Josh’s pockets burns him. Now? No—not yet. Soon though. He knows that by the way his head aches and his eyes burn and how he almost didn’t remember who his sister was when he woke. Very soon.

“Ashley,” he calls to her over the sound of rain on the roof. “Pack the bags.”

She whoops, and Josh allows himself to smile for the first time in ten years.


	28. Not a Chapter

I hate this. I hate these updates marked 'not a chapter!' when I see them in other fics. I told myself I'd never use an update to get your attention but I guess now is the time.

As of now this fic is permanently discontinued. I removed the chapters at first just to try to edit them and find my heart again but I don't think I have one anymore. I reposted the old chapters, including chapter 27 which many of you didn't get to read. All that I have is yours to read.

There are many reasons for this choice. I can't get over what I'm doing to Josh and Tyler. It's shameful, and they'd hate me, and I hate that fact. Most of the other reasons center on the fact that my mental health is declining. Some people might be able to push through but I'm not so strong. I'm in a bad place. The worst.

Mostly I'm sorry to let you guys down. There's been an incredible sort of community that's come together for this fic. I've met some amazing people. It's not enough to save my head though. Only I could do that, and I do a very poor job. I hope that what you've read did something to your heart, even just once. I don't know if I'll ever be back to finish this, and I am so very sorry because of that. So sorry.

Don't forget about me.

If you ever want updates or to ask a question, find me on Twitter @Spooky_sad and we can talk about it.

Yours,  
Spooks xx


	29. Rebirthday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas. See you at the end.

“There are some things that I need to get off of my chest,” Blurryface says. He sits bent over in the only chair in the room, bony elbows poking bruises into his knees. His metal cigarette case burns a hole in his breast-pocket and the craving for nicotine burns a hole in his chest. To distract himself, he leans back and opens the case, fiddling with the two cigarettes remaining, before snapping it closed again and again and again.

“I’ve spent ten years doing this therapist gig, and I’m starting to think that _I_ might be the one who needs the therapy. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. You know.

“I’ve got this— _reputation_ for being a bad man. I don’t mind that. Every man is a bad man to _someone_ , but when you’re bad and you have a taste for theatrics like I do, people start to talk. I hear them, the Gasmen, when they don’t know I’m listening. They think that I’m insane, just because they don’t know my motives. What ever happened to _blind obedience?_ What ever happened to subtext? What kind of world do we live in where being private is mistaken for being soft in the head?

“Imagine this. I want you to imagine this: imagine a world where there are people who want to destroy you and everything that you stand for. Imagine if your entire existence relied on people who didn’t care for you, who wanted to pluck you out of existence like a middle-aged woman might pluck a weed from the dirt of her garden. I’ve spent so long fighting for every inch I’m given in this life that I’ve begun to wonder if maybe I’m not in the wrong like everyone thinks. Maybe…maybe my existence is a crime. I won’t pretend like that isn’t possible. I’m not one of those monks who walks around pushing a broom ahead of him to avoid killing even a bug because they believe in the sanctity of life or that all lives are equal.

“Equality is a concept I can’t believe in. Ask an ant if it feels equal to a man—it can’t even answer! How’s that for equality? I can almost hear you: _Blurry, of course an ant isn’t equal to a man: but all men are created equal._ I believe that even less. Ask a starving child born to heroin-addicted parents whether it feels equal to a trust fund baby who will never know hunger or shame. If God Himself didn’t believe in equality when He created humankind, then why should I?

“But there within lies the problem. I’m getting off topic. I’m easily distracted; I apologize. We were _not_ all created equal, which makes some of us less worthy of life than others. Once, everything was simple to me and I had no doubts that I was deserving of a life, of a body, but the more time that passes, the more afraid I become. I’m so afraid that there are no greater plans for me. That must sound mad. The Gasmen would think I was joking, that _Blurryface_ —The Bad One, the Crow— was _afraid?_ You can see why I don’t talk to them. You can probably tell that I don’t open myself up in general. Sometimes, I feel like an aerosol can or similar— _Warning: contents under pressure, do not puncture_. I feel like if I open up, I’ll be opening something that can’t be closed.

Blurryface pauses. He reaches out and puts a hand on Tyler’s chest which jerks rhythmically from the ventilator that keeps him breathing while he’s in his medically induced coma. He runs his fingers across Tyler’s shaved head feeling just the slightest stubble, careful not to touch the stitches where the neurostimulators were inserted. Over his chest rests Blurry’s special screen which plays images of what Tyler is seeing while he sleeps: dinner with his family, basketball games, and _JoshJoshJosh_. A million warm scenes that make Blurryface feel like he’s on fire with rage. He clenches the cigarette case so tightly that the metal creaks. He forces his fingers to unfurl and shakes his hands, shaking himself clean of emotion and reassuming his bright personality. Sometimes, pretending is just that easy.

“Thanks for listening, Ty. I knew that I could count on you. I’ll send the Gasman back in so that he can keep monitoring your screen. They say that the swelling in your brain is reducing all the time and that once we wean you off of the medicine, you’re very likely to wake up good as new—isn’t that great? As soon as you’re awake, we’ll go another round with the deep brain stimulator, okay? We’re going to jog that memory of yours and figure out where the other half of your heart is. Don’t think otherwise.”

#

As soon as he’s free from the hospital in the basement of the prison, Blurry lights up a cigarette and sucks it down to the filter. He’s not a man who lets the cigarette linger. He finds that pleasures are best consumed quickly and thoroughly. The nicotine calms his nerves and soothes the trauma from _venting_ to Tyler’s unconscious body. God, when did he think _that_ was a good idea? When the cigarette is gone down to the filter, he grinds it into oblivion and leaves it on the concrete floor for someone else to clean up. Blurry’s no maid.

The prison is quiet enough that the gentle tap of his soft-soled shoes echoes back to him. The Gasmen are under strict orders every fifteen minutes to find him and give him updates on Tyler’s condition—but that doesn’t mean Blurry has to make it easy for them by staying in the same place. He paces because he wants them to work for it. He paces because he wants them sweating.

He paces because he can’t stay still.

Blurryface walks the prison until his feet ache. He goes into Tyler’s cell and lays on his bed smelling the scent of the damp wood. When he closes his eyes, he pretends that _he_ is Tyler, and it is the closest thing to happiness that he’s ever experienced. It’s contentment, at least. It doesn’t last long until his arms and legs feel full of jumping spiders and he has to pace again. A Gasman finds him; Tyler’s vitals have been rising, which is promising.  

When he gets sick of walking, he ends up in his office where he usually gives ‘therapy’ lessons to Tyler. In the top right drawer of his desk is koi paper of the purest white. He folds the paper in half diagonally, unfolding, refolding, unfolding and turning the paper the opposite way to make a similar fold. He knows which creases to press crisply with the flat of his fingernail and which to revel in the hiss of flesh as he smooths the pad of his thumb across the paper. Making the Swallows requires just enough mental energy that he can’t properly think of anything else; however, just because he can’t think doesn’t mean he can’t feel, and feelings drift through him like a breeze drifts through an open window: anger, resentment, _doubt, fear._

The Swallows pile up. There are three hundred by the time the sun is rising over the sea, but Blurry keeps his back to the window. Sunrises hold no novelty for him. He’s seen thousands. Throughout the darkest part of the night, the Gasmen have come twenty separate times to say that Tyler’s vitals are stabilized and that they’re going to wake him at dawn, and _would you like to be there Mr. B?_ Blurryface lets them know (with lots of snarling and teeth) that he’s very busy and to let him know how it goes.

It’s twenty minutes later when chaos ensues. His office is filled with a dozen Gasmen talking over each other, panicking. Tyler has awoken, and the news is Not Good. He seems infantile, incapable of speech, drooling on himself. There is extreme cognitive dysfunction either relating to the placement of the electrodes or how much electricity Blurry sent coursing through his brain. The results are only _potentially_ reversible.

Blurryface listens to all of this news with the same attitude as any normal man might have when listening to the day’s weather report.

After all these years and all of the shit Blurryface has subjected Tyler to—the physical and psychological torture—he’s finally gone Too Far. He sits at his desk watching the half-folded Swallow feeling strangely numb. Without Tyler’s memories, Blurry will never be able to find the other half of Tyler’s heart, and without the full heart, his hopes of taking over Tyler’s body are just dreams. These ten years have meant nothing. His whole fucking existence has been nothing but mistakes.

A noise cuts through the chaos like a knife. Blurry’s entire body shivers, goosebumps prickling his skin, scalp tightening with horror. The noise makes him blind from salvation, makes his mouth taste like metal. The Gasmen around him continue their panicked conversations about Tyler’s condition, but it sounds far away like Blurry has picked up the remote and pressed mute. The only noise he can hear is the sound of the telephone ringing—the telephone that rests on the corner of his desk under a thick layer of dust. The one that has never made nor received a call in a decade.

“Quiet,” Blurry whispers and all of his puppets fall silent and still. He clears his throat gently and plucks up the phone, slick with dust, to press it against his ear. When he speaks, he purrs. “Hello?”

There is no one there. Whoever called has already hung up, but it wasn’t the conversation that mattered. It was the call itself. Blurryface has a suspicion that he knows exactly who was on the other end of the receiver. His mouth forms the name once, twice, three times before he starts laughing.

When he’s finished laughing, he wipes tears from his eyes and continues folding the paper Swallow. The Gasmen watch from their perches around the room hesitant, unsure. It’s refreshing. Blurryface feels like himself again, like how he felt ten years ago the night of Tyler’s almost-relapse, when he invaded Tyler’s dreams and stretched them, slowed them down, had the Gasmen drag Tyler into this little prison wailing and screaming that he was innocent, that he hadn’t killed the Carrion, that this was all a dream anyway and _WHY CAN’T I WAKE UP?_

That day had felt like Christmas, but this day? This one feels like a birthday. Like a _re_ birthday.

“I want constant updates on Tyler,” Blurry says through his smile. “Keep the electrodes in place but no more zaps. Give his brain a chance to solidify—oh, and in the meantime? Triple security. Tyler is going to be receiving an uninvited visitor soon. And one of you? Stick close to me.

“Now, get the fuck out of my sight. Yes. Please and thank you. Buh-bye!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What am I doing here? Literally what the fuck am I doing here? 
> 
> I'm trying to move past my "Tyler and Josh would hate me" phase. Even though I do think they'd be revolted with where this fic has gone and where I plan to take it, it comes down to the fact that this fic makes me happy. Happiness is so rare. I need to hold on to it. 
> 
> Even though I'm back and actively working on the fic, please give me time. There's extenuating circumstances... AKA I'm pregnant (squeal!). My health still comes first, but mentally I'm in some of the best shape I've been. I've got more reasons to live than ever before. 
> 
> And I hope you're still here with me. Maybe these chapters have confused you. I hope that there will be resolution and that I will end this dream-era and do it justice for you. Please leave a comment. Let me know you're still here with me. 
> 
> Come find me on twitter: Spooky_Sad


	30. A Different Place and Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See you at the end.

It’s not the coldest day of the year, but it’s one of the coldest days when Josh Dun claws his way out of a rickety row boat and collapses onto the rocky sand of the prison’s shore. A feeling goes up his spine like electricity just being so close to this place. It’s night and the darkness acts as his cover while he shivers and breathes, clenching the ground beneath his hands. Solid earth! Well—as solid as sand can be. After three nights in the boat on the tumultuous ocean, the feeling of his stomach settling and the earth sitting so blissfully still is the sweetest thing.

He only gives himself a few of those precious moments before he trudges back through the sand to where the waves are threatening to drag his little boat back out to sea. He won’t be needing it to escape, so he lets it drift away. Limbs shaking with exhaustion, he pushes it farther out to sea until he’s up to his knees in freezing water. There are hours until sunlight, and by then, the little boat without direction will be far, far away.

Before he lets go, he pulls free two bulking backpacks (one much heavier than the other), rough, woven fabric; waterproof. If only Josh’s clothes were the same. He could barely wait to get somewhere warm and dry where he could peel off his wet shoes and socks, but there are hours to go before he’s somewhere so safe.

The trip from the beach to the prison is almost straight up, climbing rocks smoothed by years of ocean spray. More than once, his foot slips and he nearly tumbles down and down into the darkness of the sea. His fingers are shaking from the force of his grip by the time he makes it onto solid ground—not sand nor rock but real dirt which will bloom with grass during the summer months.

The prison looms above him in the darkness, and it makes him shiver. The air here feels damp and charged with static. Windows on the first floor are lit, most notably the one Blurryface uses as an office. There is a clear shadow of him hunched at his desk, probably making more of his swallows. The two of them are only two hundred feet apart at most. It’s the closest he’s been to Blurry in ten years, and the rage—the fury, the burning desire for vengeance—almost swallows him whole. He wants to grab a rock and throw it through that window. He wants to climb inside and wrap his bony hands around the other man’s neck and squeeze and squeeze and _squeeze_.

But this isn’t just about him and Blurry. There are Gasmen to think of, Tyler to think of. If there’s one thing the years have taught him, it’s that vengeance is not for the impatient.

So Josh slips into the shadows and moves around to the dark side of the prison. The entire south side of the building is made of wooden planks nailed together. When he taps his fist against it hollowly, he feels the impossible strength, like the wood here hasn’t been exposed to the elements and the sea for ten years. It won’t be pulled away when he pries. Josh will have to climb—but he and Ashley had both been expecting as much.

He sets to work, and by the time he is pulling himself up onto the roof (hands raw with splinters and from clenching the handle of the ice-axes he’s used for leverage, sides aching from the harness he used to support himself while climbing, one knee bare and bleeding after tearing open his jeans on an exposed nail) the sky looks distinctly lighter with the impending daylight. Even when he squints, he can’t spot his shack with Ashley out in the ocean.

There are a few more parts of his plan to set in motion before he can rest. He retrieves the plastic, sealed bag that contains his cell phone. The seal makes crisp sounds when he opens it. The phone is completely impersonal with a default wallpaper and only two single contacts: Ashley, and Blurryface.

He dials the number marked Blurryface and his heart hammers while it rings. Once. Twice. Three times. Again and again until he begins to doubt himself, until he begins to wonder if maybe this wasn’t the number given to him by that woman with the glasses (what was her name? Something short and easy to remember—but then how had he forgotten it? Something motherly. Laura? No, idiot, _idiot_ ), when the ringing stops.

Josh immediately ends the call. He can’t stand the thought of hearing Tyler’s quiet voice coming through the other end, distorted by Blurry’s words. He can’t stand the thought of leaving himself vulnerable to any of Blurryface’s tricks—no. He just has to hope that Blurry will respond the way Josh thinks he will. He has to hope that Blurry will understand. As soon as the call is ended, Josh removes the battery and tucks both away into the plastic bag, resealing it carefully.

Then he removes a flare, fumbling for waterproof matches he kept in a fraying box in a side-pocket of the bag. Holding the flare away from himself, he lights it and watches it blaze through the darkness. Exhausted, he lets himself lay flush against the edge of the building, elbow propped against the rooftop to keep holding the flare, hoping that Ashley is awake to see it and understand that he’s made it, he’s made the call, and all is well for now.

Jesus, this was hard work, but Tyler was worth it all.

The back of Josh’s eyelids still burn orange long after the flare dies out. When he’s got the strength, he moves towards the center of the roof to rest his back against the small enclosure which houses the stairs that lead down into the prison. At least half of him is safe from the wind now, and he has a tarp in his bag to keep himself dry when the rain comes. Like a ritual, he opens the lighter pack to remove the cans of food he has left and count them. The cans all lined up in a row look like sand trickling down in an hourglass, but he opens one anyway: whole kernel corn. What a feast. He eats it raw with his dirty fingers and watches the sun start to rise, feeling a little warmer for its efforts.

“How do you do it?” He asks the blazing glow on the horizon. “How do you get up every day?”

It doesn’t answer.

Sleep is almost unavoidable now, but there’s one more thing he does—something he promised Ashley he would do every night. He opens the crisp Ziploc baggie with her note in it, and it feels like she’s there with him, like he can smell her, like he’s not so alone. Behind his eyes, he can see her: so much older than her twenty-six years, sitting hunched at the little table in the hut burning one of their last candles, scribbling on the piece of paper. _Things might get strange there. Anywhere Blurry is, things get strange—and he’s going to have tricks and traps set to twist up your head. Read this every single night so you don’t forget. Promise me._

The note is in her gentle handwriting, rough wood grain visible under the worn pencil. _You are Josh, and you are only dreaming._

Right. This is a dream. He’s been here for so long that sometimes he forgets. There’s something about being this close to the prison that makes him want to forget. There’s comfort in forgetting, but Josh hasn’t been comfortable in years and he doesn’t want to start now. Tucking the paper away, he drags the plastic tarp over himself, cringes at the obnoxious sound it makes, and falls asleep. He dreams of playing checkers with a much younger Tyler.

When he wakes, it is dark again and raining. His hair (the only part of him exposed to the elements from sticking out of the top of the tarp) is soaked and matted to his forehead, little drops dripping down to tickle the back of his neck. He shakes his head like a dog and forces his stiff limbs to unfold. Arms like jelly, he folds the tarp and returns everything to his bags except for the empty tin can that held his dinner last night. No need for it now.

Time to get moving.

The door on the roof to gain access to the building isn’t even locked—the upper floors of the prison are unstable and haven’t been used for as long as Josh and Ashley have been collecting their data and spying on Blurry. The inside of the stairwell smells musty and unused. It’s here that he leaves the heaviest bag: either he will succeed and come back for it, or not. It will be of no use to him now. Down the concrete steps and into the uppermost floor of the prison, he sees gaping holes in the wooden floor: termite damage compounded with years of neglect and the musty sea air. For some reason the wood here isn’t like the wood that makes up the walls, it isn’t magical. There was no way it could bear Josh’s weight, but then again, Josh didn’t plan to walk very far.

Across the room is the metal grating of a furnace duct. There’s no use heating the entire prison when only the bottom floors are in use, so Josh isn’t afraid of getting a little toasty. He’s mostly afraid of things like snakes and Tyler dying and falling through the holes in the floor that look like Blurry’s gaping eyes. The vents aren’t a sure thing, but it’s the best bet he’s got for reaching the storage room on the other side of this floor.

He clings to the furthest edge of the floor where it looks most stable, swallowing against the knot in his throat when it creaks under his feet.

“I’m Josh and I’m only dreaming,” he whispers like a prayer for strength and bravery, repeating it until the words sound funny. Every step he takes, he plunges the sharp end of his ice-axe into the wooden planks of the southern wall. The axe is meant to climb mountains with, but it had worked well enough to help him up the wooden side of the prison. All he could hope is that if the floor gave way, it could bear his unexpected body weight.

Thirty feet of distance dwindles to twenty. Josh pauses to sneeze, unsettling the dust around him. Something tickles against his eyebrow, and he brushes it away resolutely, refusing to acknowledge whether or not it had the distinct tickle of eight little legs. Fuck spiders. Fuck cobwebs. He can’t lose his focus.

Just as he thinks it, he loses more than his focus—he loses his footing. There is a great splintering of wood underneath him, and then there is nothing but gaping darkness under his feet. There’s no breath in his lungs to scream with, the only thing keeping him from plunging into the darkness being his brutal grip on the ice axe’s handle and his feet scrambling at the vertical wall.

And it would be so easy to give up. There isn’t a single part of him that doesn’t hurt: his splintered palms, his growling stomach, his throbbing head, his frozen toes. He’s come so far, but there’s still so far to go, and for once Josh isn’t sure if he’s going to make it. He isn’t sure if he can— if he wants to go through any more of this torture. It would be so easy to let go, to fall into the darkness and let whatever happens happen. It might hurt less, in the end. But of all things that hurt, his heart hurts most, starved and starved for Tyler.

Pinwheeling one arm behind himself, he paws at his pack and finds the second ice-axe he’d stored there after his climb. It pulls free and with all his fragile strength he aims it at the wall where it sticks. Biceps shaking, he pulls himself up, toeing the inch of wood still clinging to the wall, and shifting his weight until he can pull the axe free and aim it farther on his way. Even the fragile wooden ledge under his feet is better than no wood at all. The doubt passes, his heart slows, and he continues to move.

When he makes it to the vent and pulls the metal grating free, dust and debris rains down. He blinks the grit free from his eyes, snorting it out of his nose. The ice-axes act as decent leverage to pull himself up.

Crawling through the air ventilation system isn’t anything like they make it out to be in the movies. First of all, there isn’t nearly so much room. Josh isn’t the tallest man, and after years of malnutrition on his rock in the ocean, he’s painfully lean. Even so, his shoulders brush the sides of the metal ducts and the thought of it makes him panic: the space is so small—if it caved, he’d be squashed like a bug. His backpack is nearly as wide as he is, which means he has to drag it along behind him or push it along ahead. He can’t afford to not see where he’s going, but the idea of something blocking his way backward terrifies him, goes against his human nature. He’s never struggled with claustrophobia before, but he’s never been in any situation so extreme before.

It feels so much like a coffin: dark and small and quiet and the _end_.

Josh takes several long moments to make himself as small as possible, closes his eyes against the darkness, and breathes in the dust. _If this is my coffin,_ he thinks, _then I’m dead already. I’m never making it out of here alive. What could be worse?_ Nothing is so inspiring as being dead, except maybe that message Ashley left for him. What was it again? This place makes him forget. It takes him a moment to think of it, a moment of fleeting panic when the knowledge seems like an empty gaping hole in his head, like the holes in the floor he’s left behind.

“I’m Josh and this is a dream. Right. Right,” he mutters to himself.

Climbing through the vent is slow, painful work. The metal is strong enough so long as he distributes his weight among as many points as he can, but the insides aren’t so smooth. Little pieces of curling metal cut his hands and scrape at his knees as he shimmies along, and when there’s a bend in the system, he has to contort himself awkwardly to slip through.

Altogether, he only has to crawl forty feet before he reaches another vent—the vent for the storage room. Peering through the slats, he sees nothing but darkness. With effort, he pushes the vent free, wincing at the clatter it makes against the floor below and the sudden brightness that fills the chute. Squinting, he crawls forward to see what’s down beneath him, holding his breath that this supply closet will have what he needs.

Only it’s not a supply closet anymore. It looks like the inside of some primitive house, walls made of rough planks nailed together. A treehouse—that’s what it is, isn’t it? Josh hasn’t been inside one of these in…years. Sunlight streams through the window, blocked only by a skinny figure that stands there.

Older, but impossible not to recognize, Tyler’s shoulders shake with tears. His hands are clenched on the windowsill.

“Hey,” Josh whispers. 

The figure jerks around, startled. Tyler holds up a hand, first two fingers extended until it’s shaped like a gun, thumb cocked and ready to fire. It’s childish, but something about it is frightening. 

Josh feels frozen under its threat, terrified, like Tyler is pointing a real weapon at him. 

The man’s hand shakes with emotion. 

“Whoa there, partner. Aim that pistol somewhere else, would you?”

“You,” Tyler seethes through his teeth. “What are you doing here? Don’t you know you’re too late? I waited and I waited for you to come for me, and you never did! Now things are all twisted up, and I don’t know how to fix it!”

“What?” Josh tumbles out of the vent, feeling a lot like the last bit of toothpaste being squeezed from the tube. His wrists are jarred painfully against the Treehouse floor, but he doesn’t think they’re broken. Jesus, if he breaks something, then he’ll really be screwed. Every part of him trembles from exertion and leftover adrenalin as he pushes himself up onto his knees. The threat on Tyler’s face keeps him kneeling. He clasps his hands in his lap, knuckles white, eyes bouncing between Tyler’s wild eyes and his hand in the shape of a gun. “I’ve been coming for you all this time. I’m sorry I was so slow—I had to be so careful, so, so careful.”

“You—you were trying?”

“Yes! For years! All these years!”

Tyler’s hand drifts downwards, barrel-fingers aiming at the floor now. His face is rife with uncertainty like he’s so afraid to feel hopeful. “Really? You really did? God. I thought you’d forgotten about me.”

“Jesus, Tyler. I could never forget about you.”  
Silence, for four of Josh’s rapid heartbeats. 

Then Tyler bursts into tears so fierce they shake his shoulders, so crippling that he drops down to his knees too, covering his face with his hands. He’s wailing, a sound that Josh has never heard from a grown man, not even on television or at funerals or anywhere.

“What’s wrong? Oh God, are you hurt? What is it?” Josh shuffles forward awkwardly, scraping denim against his raw knees. The other man reacts violently pushing himself away, back thudding against the wall in a sound that makes Josh cringe.

“I’m—not—Tyler!” And his hand is back, shaped like a gun, pressing his fingertips against his temple and before Josh can reach out through his fear and confusion and horror, Blurryface’s head explodes with a bang into a mass of blood and bone and gray matter that paints the treehouse wall and Josh can feel it on his face and on his hands, warm but cooling, and it’s so quiet now that Josh can hear the birds through the open window.

“No, no, no, no, no.” He turns and crawls away to a corner that doesn’t have any gore in it, rests his back against the wall and shivers, refusing to stare at the body. “No, no, no.”

That wasn’t real. That body isn’t Tyler, and it isn’t even Blurryface’s, because Blurryface cannot die. That’s a fact, like how the sky is blue and how Josh loves Tyler. Josh is shaking all over, cold despite the heat and humidity of—is that a forest outside?

Tyler. Josh closes his eyes and tries to remember something about him, maybe something new, something that he hasn’t remembered in a while. Anything to distract himself, to calm his breathing that feels like it’s creeping out of control. In his memories, there’s something about the sunlight, something about a table. Josh thinks that maybe once they had breakfast together, and it’s a shame that a memory that might not be real makes him feel warmer than he has felt in a decade.

When his heart is slow, he opens his eyes, but it’s only darkness that greets him. Through the darkness, he can make out vague shapes: boxes of old files from when the prison was active, projectors with dusty, broken lenses, and spiders making nests in the neglected corners of the room. Whatever magic that was here has faded, but Josh can see that this is not the supply closet he needs.  
He has to go deeper into the prison.

#

Josh spends the night in the vents, getting cozy in his coffin. He’s warm enough, there’s no rain dripping down on him from the ceiling like there used to be back on his island—but there’s no Ashley either, no warmth against his back, no sound of her snores. It’s too dark to read the message she wrote for him, and he feels a pang of regret. That message is important, though he can’t remember why. He holds it instead, pressing it flat against his heart to help remind him that he’s not alone.

When he sleeps, he dreams of Tyler, only it isn’t Tyler. Josh is lying somewhere cold. There’s a blanket over his legs, but he can’t move his hands to pull it up to his chin. Blurry’s face is above him, slack and still like a lake where there’s no wind. There’s no way to know how deep his thoughts are or what slimy creatures could be lurking in there. Blurry reaches out and rubs a hand across Josh’s scalp, and it feels rough, like his hair is shaved short.

“Hey Ty, how are you sleeping buddy?” Blurry whispers. His eyes widen with the imitation of concern.

Josh opens his mouth but the words won’t come.

“You can’t talk. Just blink if you understand me.”

Josh blinks.

“Good boy.” Blurry strokes his scalp again.

Part of Josh yearns for the touch in the same way he used to yearn for food on the island when he and Ashley would have their days of fasting to conserve the dwindling cans. Part of him is hungry for the affection, starving for it. His eyes blur with tears and the image of Blurry swims with them. 

“Aww, don’t cry. Shh, shh. Yikes, seriously, your crying face is—look, if you don’t knock it off, I’ll do something, I don’t know, something terrible to you. Real bad. Got it?”

His vision clears.

“Good! That’s the spirit. You’ve got to stay awake for me! It’s very important. See, you’re not getting any better, so we’re going to take those hunks of metal out of your brain. I don’t expect you to understand but pay attention anyway. You’ll either get much better, or you’ll hemorrhage to death.” Blurry beams, giving a thumbs up. “This might hurt just a bit, but keep your eyes on me so we can tell if you lose any brain function. Ready? What a champ. You’re such a champ, Tyler. Your little league coach was right about that.”

And God, it hurts so much and when Josh wakes, he’s gone blind. Everything is darkness and he’s being pressed in on all sides, buried alive, with something like tears or blood or snot dripping from his eyes and his nose. The noises he makes writhing against his prison are unholy, deafeningly loud. He has no idea who he is or where he is or why he’s there, but he knows Tyler. Tyler is hurting. Tyler could be dying.

There’s a low groan punctuated by a sharp screech, and the surface beneath him gives way. Somewhere on the way down, Josh remembers everything (well, everything important), but by then it is too late and he is tumbling into the darkness of the prison. There isn’t time to be afraid or to have regrets. Before he can blink, he’s landing flat on his back somewhere near and dark. The breath is knocked from his lungs and the back of his skull kisses the wooden floor so that it throbs at twice the beat of before. Nearby, his bag lands with a hollow thud.

He’s alive. He can’t move, traumatized. His breathing feels wonky, like there are stitches in his sides. With a trembling hand, he wipes at the wetness on his face—he’s pretty sure they’re tears—and remembers Tyler’s pain. Being so close to him in this prison made the dreams so much more vivid. Blurry’s words echo in his ears: this will either fix you or kill you. He can feel intuitively that Tyler isn’t dead the same way that he knows all of his own limbs are still attached, but that doesn’t mean that Tyler will stay that way forever. 

Time is running out.

Josh forces himself to sit up. His ribs creak dangerously and his head feels likely to burst, but nothing seems broken. The darkness here is not as resolute as it was in the vent, and when he squints, he can make out shapes. Above him is the gaping hole he made in the floor, and if he squints, he can barely make out the looming metal of the destroyed vent. He’s fallen straight through to the third floor of the prison. The floor here is also unpolished wood but mostly protected from the elements and not nearly as unstable as the one above. As long as he’s careful with his footing, he should be able to walk to the next room where the storage closet is. Bye-bye, vents. Good riddance.

His knees crackle and pop when he stands, tugging his backpack off of the ground and over his sore shoulders. He remembers then—Ashley’s note. He’d been holding it while he slept, and it hadn’t tumbled down after him. Regretful, but really, how important could it have been? He’s already forgotten it, after all.

Through the dim light of the window behind him, he can see that both sides of the room are lined with prison cells. Josh shivers. Through the silence, he thinks he hears something—breathing? His own?

No time to waste. He begins taking careful, creaking steps, testing the boards beneath him with ginger, searching feet. It’s slow moving, but not nearly as slow as crawling through the vents. Josh clings to the center of the aisle, glancing left and right into each new cell just to be sure there’s nothing there.

A hand materializes from the darkness on his left, reaching with blackened fingers for him. 

Josh jerks backward, any caution is forgotten, and his sore back bangs against rigid bars of the opposite row of cells. He watches, heart in his throat, as another hand reaches towards him: one, ten, twenty, thirty pairs of hands from up and down the row of cells, black halfway down their wrists. From this distance, they can’t reach him—but Jesus, it’s one of the eeriest fucking things he’s ever seen.

Then a hand touches the back of his ankle. The noise he makes is anything but manly, spinning around until he loses his balance, struggling to maintain a good distance from both rows of cells.

“Shhhh,” a familiar voice whispers. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Josh squints through the dark. There is a figure in the cell behind him, seated slumped on the ground. Hair long and matted, face thin and dirty, they’re barely recognizable.

“Ashley?” He whispers.

She lets out a trembling, wet breath. Tears stream down her cheeks as she leans her forehead forward on the bars. “God, it really is you. I thought it was, but Blurry plays so many tricks. I couldn’t be sure.”

“Ashley, what are you doing in there?” Josh whispers. He crawls forward and puts a hand on one of the bars of her cell. It’s rusted but strong and doesn’t move when he jerks on it.

“Blurry found me. He knew from the start what we were up to—it’s like—it’s like he sees _everything_. Like he knows what you’re thinking before you even think it. He put me up here with all those things over there. I’ve been here for so long, I’ve felt like I’m losing my mind.”

“I don’t understand,” Josh says tenderly. “I saw you just a few days ago.”

She shakes her head, wiping at her tears with a grimy fist. Dirt streaks across her face. “Time moves differently here. It’s like I said, it’s been so long—so long. I’m so glad you’re here Josh. Please don’t leave me behind in here. I can’t last like this much longer.”

“I’d die before I’d leave you behind. You and Tyler. You’re the most important people in my life.”

She lets out a shaky breath. It reeks, but Josh doesn’t even let his nose wrinkle. “Josh, you have to give up on this hope of getting to Tyler. There’s no way we can get to him. Blurry knows you’re coming here. He knows your plan. He’s just toying with you, waiting for the perfect moment to squash you. I know how you feel about Tyler—but, but can’t you just—”

“No,” Josh says simply. He pulls away from the bars gently. “Whatever you’re going to say, no, I can’t…and the real Ashley would already know that, but you aren’t her, are you?”

She throws both of her arms out through the bars until her chest presses flat against them, scrambling to grab him with dirty fingers, teeth bared in a grimace of hate. “Fuck! I almost had you!”

“You didn’t,” Josh says. He stands up and adjusts the pack on his back. “You’re not even a real thing: just a mirage I’ll bet. But I give you an A for effort.”

He turns and continues down the hallway, feeling more resolute than ever. The creature in the cell behind him howls venomous curses, but they’re music to Josh’s ears—Ashley is still safe on the island. This was just another one of Blurry’s tricks, his mind games, magic that was put in place to keep people like Josh out. It was weak.

Josh stops at the door across the room. Not-Ashley has grown quiet behind him, and when he glances over his shoulder, there are no more reaching hands. Whatever is behind this door could just be another trick of Blurry’s. Maybe he’s saving the best for last. But for the people he loves, Josh can be brave.

Without fear, he opens the second door.

#

In another place and another time, Tyler Joseph cranes his neck back to apply thin black paint there, being careful not to smudge it on the stiff collar of his white dress shirt. He avoids gazing at his reflection. He’s never really liked looking at himself, even after all these years. Instead, he keeps his eyes firmly below the chin as he smooths on an even layer of darkness. There’s a sense of ritual to this (he's done this night after night, show after show), but he tries to keep himself present, to remember what this means to him and to his fans, to never let this paint become just another part of his wardrobe like his suit-jacket or socks.

He’s smearing it over his knuckles when the door to the bathroom adjacent to his dressing room bursts open with such force that the knob bangs against the wall and leaves a hole in the drywall. Tyler’s heart stutters in his chest, hands jerking so that he dumps the rest of the paint out on the vanity top in his haste to turn around. Everyone who’s anyone knows not to come in while he’s putting on his paint.

This isn't just anyone. It’s Josh—but it isn’t Josh. The Josh that Tyler knows has neon-yellow hair, and this strange Josh in front of him has his natural hair, the curls matted with dirt. His face is so thin, dusted with unkempt facial hair that Tyler hasn’t seen on his best friend in ages, not since the other man’s Car Radio spoof. Josh’s clothes for the concert are nowhere in sight. Everything in him knows that this isn’t Josh, that there’s no way it could be, but it _is_.

Wild-eyed, Josh looks him up and down, lingering at the paint on his neck. Tyler feels hot under his gaze. “Who are you supposed to be?” Josh asks, and God, his voice, there’s no mistaking it. “Blurry or Tyler? I have trouble telling you apart anymore.”

“What are you talking about? I’m getting into character. What happened to your hair?”

Josh looks vaguely concerned, running a hand through his curls. “What are you talking about? I’ve been crawling around through the vents all day. My hair is literally the least of my concerns.”

“ _Okay_ —we had lunch together, Josh. Vents? All day? What are you even talking about?”

Josh squeezes his eyes shut like Tyler does when he’s got a migraine. He slits them open, and his face goes white like he’s seeing a ghost. “God. You’re real, aren’t you? You aren’t one of the tricks. You’re Tyler.”

“I’m Tyler,” Tyler says, pointing a black finger at himself. He turns his finger around. “You’re Josh. Glad we’ve gotten these introductions out of the way. Shouldn’t you be in your dressing room? They’re supposed to come and get us at any moment for the show.”

“What show?” Josh asks.

“The… _concert_?” Tyler can’t understand why he’s explaining these things to Josh, but he can’t understand why Josh has changed his hair, how Josh got into his bathroom (especially because Tyler showered like, thirty minutes ago and he was pretty sure that the other man _was not there_ ), or why Josh is acting so strangely.

Josh comes so close that Tyler can smell him, sweat and dirt. Being so close to Josh is familiar, like breathing air, but it makes him nervous too. They haven’t been this close to each other, this intense, in so long. There’s no way to stand this close to another guy you

_(Don’t think it, don’t even think it, Tyler)_

_care_ about and have it be casual. He can count Josh’s eyelashes, see the ring of hazel green around his pupils until the black grows large enough to swallow them whole, and he can _feel_ that Josh is staring at him just as intensely. It's heat. It's pressure. It's like a hand around his throat, but he likes it.

“You’re from a different time, aren’t you?” Josh breaths. “A different place. A different Tyler. But you’re still _Tyler_ , aren’t you? Of course, you are. Of course. I can see that. I know you. I _know_ you.”

“You know me,” Tyler repeats like in a trance. They're so close together that their breaths mingle, that there's no need to speak above a whisper to be heard.

“And you know me. I’m Josh. Maybe not _your_ Josh, but I’m Josh. You know that, right?”

It’s completely impossible, but part of him does know it. He doesn’t understand it, but he knows it, simultaneously acknowledging that there is a Josh that is quantifiable as _his._ So Tyler nods mutely.

“Tell me this—I can’t stay long, I’ve got to go find you, my you—but just tell me: in your world, we end up together, right? You and I, we are meant to be, aren’t we? Like fate. Us, we’re fate, aren’t we?” Josh looks feverish. His hands come up to grip at Tyler’s shoulders, strong and nearly hysterical.

"I don't understand what's going on," he admits.

"It's too much to be explained," Josh soothes. "You had to be there. Just, please, answer me. Tell me that there's a world where we are together because, Jesus, I feel so lost without you where I'm at. I don't know if we're going to work out. The whole thing is about as complicated as _you_ are." Josh smiles weakly. "I guess I need to know that there's at least one world out there where I'm going to end up happy."

And the words come out before Tyler can think about them: 

“Yes,” he says. “We’re together here. Yes.”

The relief on Josh’s face is overwhelming. It makes Tyler’s heart flutter. The other man seems to come alive, renewed, like whatever life source he draws from has been filled to the brim now.

“I know! God, Tyler, I know. Dumb question. Okay, I have to go now. There’s only one other door in here, so I’ll just go out that one. Good luck at your—show? Good luck. You’re going to kill it! You're so good at everything!” 

And before Tyler can even call out to stop him, Josh From a Different Time is slipping out the door of Tyler’s dressing room, shutting it gently behind him with barely a click of the doorknob.

Tyler stands there, lost. His eyes burn and he wants to rub at them, but he doesn't want to smear paint all over his face. Only a moment passes before there’s a rapid knock, and leaning into the room is Jenna, her hair pulled back into a high ponytail. Her soft blue eyes are so unlike Josh’s, but the planes of her face are just as lovely and sweet. Her brow furrows at the sight of him undressed.

“Ty, they’re calling for you. Are you not ready yet?”

“Josh,” Tyler croaks, ignoring her words. He points a half-black finger towards the hallway and hates the sight of it trembling. “Is Josh out there?”

“Of course. He’s ready to go before you, for once. Are you okay? Feeling alright? Let me feel your forehead.”

Tyler smears his hands together so the paint smudges—good enough. He grabs his suit jacket off of the hanger so swiftly that the hanger clatters to the ground. Jenna watches warily, opening the door wide for his frantic stride.

And there’s Josh in the hallway, yellow hair standing up in a million different directions. He’s sitting at the practice drums banging out a beat. When he sees Tyler, he smiles tiredly. There are people milling around: security and techs trying to get them into position, but Tyler lingers at the practice drums even when Josh stands.

“Your shirt is dirty,” Josh says, reaching out to brush at Tyler’s shoulders. His touch burns.

“Thanks,” Tyler says softly. He’s looking at Josh like he’s seeing him for the first time: the slope of Josh’s nose, the circles beneath his eyes. Has Josh always looked so unhappy? Tyler can’t remember, and that kills. Words echo in his head, A Different Josh's:  _I feel so lost without you... I need to know there's a world out there where I'm going to be happy._

“That’s what bros are for,” Josh says. They meet eyes. “Right?”

“Right.”

“Tyler, we need you!” Someone calls.

“Better get going,” Josh says. He claps Tyler on the shoulder. “Maybe we’ll run into each other out there, huh?”

“Maybe.” He lets himself be moved into position, tugging his ski mask down over his face. The pressure, the anonymity is comforting. He hums, warming his throat, but his mind is far away, farther away than he even knows, thinking about a time when things might have been different.

#

When Josh makes it through the second door, there’s nothing but darkness on the other side. His heart is light and his hands are warm, warm because of Tyler. The other man’s face is burned into the back of his eyes. He hasn’t been so close to Tyler in ten years, and seeing the way he knows his closest friend (and more, if they can make it out of here alive and if they both feel the same way) will age is so painfully lovely.

Almost as lovely is the sight of what rests inside the supply closet. Josh shifts aside boxes with renewed energy, squinting through the darkness to make out the vague shapes. He breathes a sigh of relief. It’s all here—every last thing he will need to execute the next part of his plan.

Josh puts the gas mask over his face, and for once, he likes the way it fits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Give me feedback, or give me death! I'm pretty concerned about how this chapter will be received, but that doesn't mean you should go easy on me. Break my black little heart, or make it sing. 
> 
> Or find me on Twitter and roast me alive for taking so long to churn out this chapter: Spooky_Sad


	31. A Homecoming

It’s the first warm day of the summer, and Blurry spends half of it underground.

He slams his fists down on the table in front of him, loving the thud of flesh on dull metal that reverberates through his bones and teeth. Across from him, Tyler sits stoic in his wheelchair. Over his atrophied legs is a rough woven blanket to keep him warm but his arms, bared by the hospital gown, are covered in bumps from the chill of being down in one of the basement’s cells.

“I’m sick of your dithering,” Blurry says through his teeth. “You’ve put this off long enough. I’ve played my end game, now make your move.”

Tyler’s jaw clenches and unclenches. He reaches out with one shaking hand, lifts a black checker, and moves it one single space diagonally. Blurry claps his hands together, rubbing them victoriously. His red checker jumps and removes from the board Tyler’s last playing piece.

“You…um…you—” The weak man puts his elbows on the table and winds his fingers through his hair (regrown and then some from his operation) rolling his eyes to the ceiling like the words he’s searching for might be printed there. “You weren’t playing the game the way it’s supposed to be played. You—”

“Cheated? Watch your mouth before you besmirch my good name,” Blurry says pleasantly, separating Tyler’s pieces from his own and sliding them back across the board. “Come on. Best four out of seven.”

“We should take a—we should wait. I need um…I need—” He presses his hand to his mouth.

“Jesus Christ, you ate four hours ago, do you really have to eat again already?”

“Sorry,” Tyler says, scowling.

Blurry sighs through his teeth, gathering his patience like a child gathering jacks. Human needs could be advantageous—oh, how fun it was to keep Tyler from sleeping for three, or four, or five days when he first came to the prison all those years ago!—and food? Food was _leverage_. But having to cater to Tyler’s human needs was tedious. He turns to the door where a single Gasman stood, empty goggle eyes flashing bright under the overhead fluorescent lights. “Bring a meal.”

When he and Tyler are alone, they set up the checkerboard again. Blurry can (begrudgingly) admit that Tyler is the second best opponent he’s ever played against in checkers. The most formidable opponent Blurry’s ever had is himself (those long nights high up in the Treehouse—when one can’t breathe for the fear of The One finding him out—when he had to pretend to be someone else just to have some fucking _company_ …). In a lot of ways, he and Tyler are very similar, so it makes sense that Tyler would share many of Blurry’s qualities: his aptness for strategy, namely.

While they wait for the food, they play another game of checkers and Blurry quizzes Tyler on nouns.

“That big ball of fire in the sky. What’s that?”

Tyler groans. “I don’t know. Um. So hot. It’s the—the center, you know. Of the—” He moves his hands in wide sweeping motions. Watching him struggle to name words, knowing that they’re on the tip of his tongue, is strangely satisfying.

“Center of the galaxy, yeah. But the big ball of fire. Focus on that.” The two opposing forces on the checkerboard clash and Blurry takes one of Tyler’s checkers. Behind them, the door opens and the Gasman reenters. A tray is sat down on the corner of the rolling metal table that Blurry has wheeled over between Tyler’s wheelchair and his cot. Blurry whistles lowly while looking over the tray's contents. “Look at that, Ty. Chicken and noodles. Are those mashed potatoes and gravy? Golly that looks good. Looks strangely like the ones your mom used to make—how’d we pull that off, huh? Magic?”

Tyler is practically salivating, sunken eyes glued to the plate. He clasps his hands in his lap, bony fingers twisting around each other. The hungry, anxious look on his face is more delicious than any food Blurry’s ever tasted out of curiosity, and it fills spots in Blurry’s tummy that chicken and noodles could never touch. He wafts his hand over the steaming food so Tyler gets a big whiff.

“But before you get your food, you have to earn it, don’t you? That’s really only polite, I think. Answer a few questions for me and all of this is yours. Deal?

“Question one. Where’s the other half of your heart?”

“I don’t know.”

Blurryface rolls his eyes and holds up a finger. “That’s strike one. Don’t get psyched out though, okay? You’ve got another chance. Question two. This one is really important. The most important, maybe, okay? Are you listening? _Where is Josh Dun?”_

Tyler is silent, face blank. Sometimes Blurry forgets that his connection with Tyler is more than a one-way street. Their connection is surely responsible for Blurry's odd and intense feelings for Josh, (he squints, staring into the other man’s dark, empty eyes) but in what ways is Tyler becoming similar to _him_?

“Josh isn’t...real.”

Tense silence.

“If I find out you’re lying to me,” Blurry says quietly, “If I find out that you know where he’s hiding, that you know what he’s planning, or that you know any little thing about what he’s been up to for the last ten years—I will destroy every little part of you. Every single last little _piece_. I promise. Okay?”

Tyler says nothing.

Blurry holds up three fingers. “That was strike three.”

“Skipped—skipped that—”

“Josh is worth two strikes. That’s in the rulebook. Keep up.” Blurry uses those three extended fingers to nudge the heaping plate of food off of its perch on the table. The plastic tray thuds hollowly against the floor, sound dampened by the mashed potatoes which smear against the concrete, noodles splattering into a delicious blast radius. They both stare down at the plate. “You’re very clumsy, Ty. That’s okay. You’re still recovering. I’ll just leave that there on the floor for you, okay?”

“You—you’re—you’re bad, you—”

“Yes,” Blurry says, standing. “Clearly you aren’t in the mood to play anymore. We’ll call this game a draw for now, alright? No need to make that face. There’s always tomorrow! Ha! Keep your spirits up, friend. I’ll see you real soon.”

He clenches his teeth tightly behind his smile and steps out of Tyler’s cell. The Gasman who guards the prisoner day and night slides the metal door closed and locks it. His last glimpse of Tyler is him shakily lowering himself from his wheelchair down to the plate of food on the floor, slipping desperate fingers through the mashed potatoes and bringing them to his mouth. His glare is dark enough to hint at murder. Blurry holds up both hands like guns and winks. _Bang, bang_.

#

In his office, Blurry loses his mind. He wrenches the phone off of his desk (the phone he’s dusted  _every fucking day_ for months since it first rang) and throws it through the window. He shreds the koi papers waiting to be transformed into white origami Swallows and throws them around the room by fistfuls. Upended are the bookshelves, pages plucked from fragile creaking spines. He rips up the carpet and puts his fist through the walls and plucks the hands from the old fashioned clocks until he’s so angry that he’s nothing but smoke. The Gasman guarding him stands by the door and watches his madness without flinching.

Eventually, his anger wanes, but his anger is like the ocean and impossible to dry up. When he’s as corporal as he can get, he sits among the wreckage of his office and cries tears that hurt, like fingernails down his cheeks.

“I didn’t mean it,” he says, gathering the torn koi paper with gentle fingers. “I didn’t mean _this_.”

When he blinks, his office is righted: the window unshattered and bookshelves put right, but the paper remains torn. Some things, the most important things, can’t be repaired. He moves shakily to his desk and adjusts the angle of the phone, fingers brushing the invisible dust off of the glossy black curve of the handle. In the bottom drawer is a stack of fresh koi paper. He sits down and begins to fold another origami bird. It comes out deformed because of his trembling hands, but he holds it just as delicately and values it no less.

“This is your fault,” he says to the Swallow, stroking one misshapen wing and imagining skin like hot silk, “I’m going mad and it’s all your fault.”

Blurry’s grip on reality has always been particularly delicate, but the more time that passes since the mysterious phone call the more tenuous that grip feels.  Where was Josh Dun? Where? Waiting felt like holding his breath, and his head grew dizzy with it. Thinking about the wrath Josh would rain down on him made him shiver—but maybe this _was_ Josh’s wrath. Maybe this endless purgatory, balancing on the precipice of ecstasy and agony, questioning the last tendons of his mind’s strength…maybe this was exactly how Josh intended to get even.

More and more, Blurry thinks about hurling himself out the great window of his office, hoping to god he hits every rock on the way down to the ocean. He wants to crack every bone in his body. He wants to hollow himself out like a pumpkin at Halloween. Most frightening of all, he thinks about sneaking into Tyler’s cell in the night and blowing the other man’s brains out with a gun nicked off a Gasman. The thought makes his scalp prickle, like when he walks out into the ocean until it’s all around him and all that he can see.

Killing Tyler would be like killing God. Like killing himself.

Blurry stops mid-Swallow to pull at his hair. He feels like he’s suffocating, so he goes to the window to open it wide. It’s raining—drizzling really—but it’s warm, and when the warm wind swells, drops mist the back of his neck while he sits at his desk. It makes him feel a little less like a bird trapped in a cage of his own design.

He folds for nearly three hours before his desk is covered in birds. The tips of his fingers burn from pressing against the dry paper, but it’s a pain that he likes. Gathering them in his arms, delicate as flower blossoms, he walks them to the closet at the corner of his office where he keeps every bird he’s made in the last ten years. Shelves on shelves on shelves, packed full until the birds stack on top of each other and are arranged in precarious piles on the floor. Each spot is chosen specifically, and Blurry handles them the way children handle eyelashes: like they are precious with wish-magic.

When he turns to leave, he stops short.

There is a Gasman in the doorway.

“What are you doing in here?” Blurry asks. “Get out.”

With careful, deliberate movements, the Gasman lifts its gloved hands to remove its mask.

Underneath is another mask: green, shining nylon with large, empty eyes. The alien lets the gas mask fall to the ground where it squashes a pile of Swallows, but Blurry couldn’t care less. He stares, numb, feeling too much. Spooky adjust his AR-15 and sweeps its barrel back towards the office like a gentleman who's just held the door open for a lady. He speaks, mouth moving faintly under the fabric of his mask, treating Blurry to the sound of his voice for the first time in a decade.

“After you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I was gone for a hot minute I had to FUCKING GIVE BIRTH!!!! For those who were interested: I had my baby and she's fabulous and doing great. No way in hell am I abandoning this fic (we've been through too much together now, yeah?)
> 
> Next chapter is in the works, but I need to know what you think of this one first. How's Blurry's POV? Leave a comment and let me know or come to Twitter and yell at me about it: spooky_sad


	32. Plan Nobody Makes It Out Alive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll just warn in light of recent events in my country that this chapter contains multiple references to guns. AR-15's specifically. They are used. Please proceed with caution if that bothers you. If not, see you at the end.

They sit on opposite sides of the desk  

It is quiet enough that Blurry can hear himself blink. His bones feel full of jumping spiders and he can’t sit still, leg bouncing perpetually. Across from him, Spooky sits as motionless as a statue. If it weren’t for the rise and fall of his chest, Blurry might believe that whoever was under the alien mask was dead, a ghost come back from the grave to haunt him. Every part of him is desperate to drink Spooky in, thirsty for the satiation that has been ten years in coming. How has he aged? Is his mouth framed with laugh lines or frown lines? Has time changed the planes of his face, planes that Blurry has traced on the back of his eyelids every night since dragging Tyler to prison? There’s so much he wants to see and to know.

But all he gets is the mask.

“Ingenious trick,” Blurry says. He feels far away inside of himself like his eyes are two distant windows that he has to squint to see through. His mouth seems to move without his volition; he hopes that he’s saying something clever. “How long have you been a sheep in wolf’s clothing?”

“A while,” Spooky says. Blurry shivers and blames it on the mist of rain coming through the open window.

“When you first appeared in the desert, I should have killed you.” Instead, he’d put a gun in Spooky’s hand. There is irony there, some divine sense of humor that Blurry can’t appreciate. He doesn’t like any sense of humor except for his own. “I should have plucked all of your arms and legs off like they were flower petals.”

He reaches up to the cigarette case in his breast-pocket and Spooky lifts the barrel of the AR-15 from where it’s been resting lazily pointed at his chest. Now it stares Blurry in the eye. He experiences the odd, uncomfortable sensation of fear even though he is immortal, even though he shouldn’t be afraid of anything. Fear is one of those emotions that isn’t based on logic, he guesses.

“Stay still,” Spooky says.

“You can’t kill me with that.” Blurry nods towards the gun. His fingers hover, indecisive, over the cool metal in his shirt. “You can’t kill me at all.”

“I know. But for some reason, there you are, sitting still anyway.”

Maybe Spooky doesn’t know that Blurry couldn’t stand if he tried. Maybe he doesn’t know that sitting in this chair with Spooky across from him is exactly where he wants to be and that the threats feel like caresses to him. He’s a fool if he doesn’t—but he’s always been a fool. “Every moment you let pass,” Blurry says. “Is another moment closer to me plucking your bones from beneath your skin and picking my teeth with them.”

The alien says nothing.

“What’s the obligatory amount of time we should stare at each other—”

“Quiet.”

Blurry’s jaw snaps shut and he grinds his teeth together. He can’t tell whether he likes or hates Spooky telling him what to do, can’t tell if he likes or hates doing what Spooky says. Silence isn’t his forte; without his words, he’s a pen without ink, and a pen without ink is worth less than a body without the bones. He reaches up and pretends to lock his lips together with a twist of his fingers. Spooky doesn’t blow his brains out for moving—weak. Blurry rolls his eyes but doesn’t relax. Getting shot couldn’t kill him, but it could hurt, and it might take all the king’s horses and all the king’s men to put him together again. He doesn’t want to miss a moment of this.

“Don’t throw away that key,” Spooky says. “We need to talk.”

“’Quiet’, ‘talk’. You sound confused.”

The face under the mask shifts, but Blurry doesn’t have experience looking at any human face except for his own—and Tyler’s—so he can’t understand the expression. Maybe it’s a smile, but it doesn’t look happy. “I have questions. You’re going to answer them as honestly as you can or... _bang bang_.”

Bang, bang. Why did that phrase sound so familiar? Why did it give him the same electric jolt that he sometimes felt when he caught sight of Tyler? That eerie familiarity, that déjà vu. His mouth feels dry. There is another breeze from the window and the rain mists the back of his neck, so close but not nearly what he needs. Blurry feels like a magician on stage only to realize the audience knows a few tricks, too. His mouth feels numb. “Can you read my mind?”

“Be honest with me,” says Spooky, ignoring the question. “What’s wrong with Tyler?”

Tyler. Just hearing that voice saying that name makes his chest feel pressurized, one instant away from exploding. His fingers tingle with static, prickles of fury, threatening to turn him into smoke. It figures that after all these years, Spooky—Josh, let’s drop the fucking act—still can’t get Tyler out of his head. It figures that the first thing he would want to talk about, perhaps the only thing, is Tyler.

And that hurts. It is a different hurt than the ones he’s used to, a deeper hurt, an inside pain. A _feelings_ one. Blurry doesn’t understand how something that has no corporeal form—something that exists only in theory—could physically hurt. Not for the first time, he wishes that emotions were solid inside of him, that he could open himself and scoop them out like the guts from a pumpkin.

“What isn’t wrong with Tyler,” says Blurry. “Be more specific.”

“He can’t talk.”

“He has nominal aphasia. It makes it hard to recall the words for some things,” Blurry explains. “In the interest of total disclosure, I’ll go ahead and admit that it’s because I put little electrodes in his brain and fried him up until a vessel went pop. He’s made a lot of progress, though. You should have seen him when he first woke up—so slow. It put a real damper on the friendly banter.”

“Why?” Spooky asks.

“Electric current to certain parts of the brain has been promising in retrieving deeply buried memories.”

“What memories were you looking for?”

Blurryface weighs the pros and cons of honesty for honesty’s sake. “I’m looking for the other half of his heart. You wouldn’t happen to know where that is, would you?”

“In his chest.”

“Shows what you know. Or rather what you don’t.”

“What do you want his heart for?”

“A meal?” Blurry suggests, steepling his fingers. “I imagine it would be tasty.”

The finger slips again, caressing the curve of the trigger.

Blurry rolls his eyes. “I’m tired of being a passenger. I want to fly the plane.”

“Being cryptically honest doesn’t count as honesty.”

“Do you know what?” He presses his palms against the armrests, tensing, on the verge of standing. “You’re really not as much fun as you used to be.”

And sometimes his mouth is quick to say things his brain hasn’t even thought yet; by the time the words reach his ears, he finally knows them to be true. This creature across from him isn’t the Josh he knows, isn’t even the Spooky he knows. Time has changed him, and time has consequently made Blurry its victim. There is no reversing it. While waiting, it was lost. Josh is lost to him.

“What did you expect?” Spooky asks. “I know you too well. I’m not interested in your games anymore. They weren’t much fun to begin with.”

“Speak for yourself,” says Blurry.

“I’ve spent all my time away from you changing,” says Spooky, ignoring Blurry’s comment. “And you’ve spent all of your time staying the same. That’s why I’m finally going to beat you.”

Blurry almost believes it. “You know,” he says slowly. “I see what you mean. You have changed. You’re a lot smarter than the mindless dolt you used to be—but there’s one thing that hasn’t changed. Tyler this, and Tyler that. You won’t have him. He’s not yours to have anymore.”

“Because he doesn’t think I exist.”

“Of course he thinks you exist. You’re a stain in his head. There’s no way I could scrub you out, not even if I tried.”

“Then what was it all for?” he asks. “Why the charade, why make him say it over and over again?”

“Because it hurts him,” Blurry says simply. The wind from the open window brushes against the back of his neck. One of the fragile koi papers on his desk ruffles. It has stopped raining. “Because I wanted him to know that he would say whatever I wanted him to say.”

“Our time is up now,” the alien says. “Did you know that?”

“It’s not,” Blurry promises. “Take off the mask. Let me look at you.”

Spooky reaches up and pulls the mask off, revealing his face piece by piece: full lips, large nose, well-shaped eyes, and dark curly hair, wild from being under the mask for who knows how long. Time has been good to him. Blurry drinks the sight of him in like it’s the sweetest water.

“Listen to me,” Blurry says. He stops. The words don’t want to come. Every part of him wants them stifled, except for the worst parts, the parts he wants to cut out, the parts that rule him. “I don’t know you anymore. That’s the truth. But—I could get to know you. I could get to know you. I know I’m a bad man. But I could be your bad man.”

“What?” Josh says, and even though Blurry’s been listening to his voice this whole time, it’s so much more satisfying to watch his lips form the words, to see his teeth. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that you belonged to me.” He feels desperate. He hates himself for it. “But that somewhere…at some point…maybe I’ve started to belong to you, too. Maybe I’m not Tyler. Maybe you’ll never get over him. But I look like him, and I sound like him, and if I try hard enough, then maybe I could be pretty fucking close. I want to know—if that could be enough for you. We could spend the rest of eternity together: me torturing you and the people who hurt you. That’s all it ever is, anyway.”

It. Obsession. Infatuation. More.

There. The words are out. They hang between them tangible like smoke, but Blurry has never felt more naked, never more vulnerable. The silence is deafening, the roar of the distant ocean lost in the roar of blood in his ears. His eyes scan Josh’s face hungrily, looking for any sign, any hint at the way he’s taken Blurry’s pitiful monologue. It’s been too long for Blurry to be able to read his expression like he once did.

“I hope that you’re joking,” Josh says. “I hope that—whatever that was, that you just said—was another one of your tricks, because I can’t even wrap my brain around the idea that you could really think you have a chance with me, that I would ever, ever choose you over Tyler.”

He sees red. He stands up, bordering on incorporeal in his fury. Blurry feels blind with it, sick with it, strong with it, and Josh’s gun couldn’t cause him half as much pain as those words coming from that mouth.

He has just enough time to realize that Josh hasn’t moved, hasn’t raised the muzzle of his weapon to shoot him, and that there is something wrong with that sight.

The first gunshot comes through the window, silent, and takes his breath away.

It doesn’t even hurt yet. He is sprawled over the scattered koi papers on his desk, bent from the force of the impact. All at once, he is solid. Too solid. He struggles to catch his breath properly and barely manages to push himself back to collapse into his desk chair. Josh points passed him to the window.

“Wave to Ashley,” he says. “She’s been waiting a really long time to do that. It took her years to learn.”

Blurry feels like he’s drowning, breath sticky. He wants to laugh. He wants to wave.

“You won’t believe what I’ve been learning,” Josh says.

The second gunshot takes away everything.

#

Ashley’s second shot hits Blurry directly in the head. His skull shatters like a bone vase and he collapses forward like a puppet with the strings cut. It all seems familiar, somehow. The body begins to bubble like boiling water, turning into dark smoke that evaporates into thin air. There isn’t much time.

Josh gives a thumbs up to the open window, hoping Ashley is still watching to see it. He folds up the alien mask and leaves it on Blurry’s desk. If there was time, he would bury it.

Putting the gas mask on is never a pleasurable experience, but he does it gladly. Stepping out into the corridor is nerve-wracking; there is always an underlying fear that this time, he will be caught, that this time the other gasmen will sense an intruder in their presence. Despite the fear, he does it gladly, with a spring in his step. Because he’s finally going to see Tyler.

There are twenty minutes until the next shift change when a new Gasman will enter Blurry’s office and find what Josh has done. That isn’t much time at all—especially considering that the speed at which Blurry’s body was degenerating could also be the speed at with it regenerates. For all Josh knows, the demon could be corporeal again in half that time, ready to rain wrath down on Josh, Tyler, the whole damn prison. It had taken so long for the rain to stop, for Ashley to be able to take her shot. So much time, gone.

Josh walks a little faster. Down the hallway, through the thick metal door. The air in the lowest level of the prison is colder. He can feel the change even through the suit he’s wearing. The basement is sprawling, untouched by the damp and rot like the upper levels Josh had to suffer through to find the closet with extra hazmat suits and masks. Its floors are unpolished concrete, the walls an eggshell white that burns in the unforgiving fluorescent lights above. Down here, there is only one cell.

Guarded by one Gasman.

Through the bars, he can see Tyler: asleep on his bed, back facing the door, knees bent and arms curled around himself like an embrace. Josh’s appearance would mean little to him, even if he were awake: what difference does fifteen minutes makes to a human? Could he even tell that the next guard has arrived too early for his shift?

The Gasmen can. It stares at Josh, maybe pointedly, with its empty, goggle-like eyes. Josh stares back.

It’s not time yet, the creature says. Josh edges towards the door to Tyler’s cell. There is a key, old-fashioned like everything else in this place. It is rusted and heavier than it looks. Josh has held it many times, used it to open and close Tyler’s cell more times than he can count. His fingers itch for it, one last time. All he has to do is get this Gasman out of the way. Josh points to the stairs. Go.

It doesn’t move. It’s not made to. Josh knows these creatures, their minds wiped clean like chalkboards; he was meant to become one. Those days in the desert feel like a lifetime ago. Is this the empty fate that would have awaited him if he’d never seen Tyler marching among the hostages to the sea? Another mindless drone working for Blurryface, working to oppress Tyler?

There isn’t time for reflection. There isn’t time to wait for the Gasman to leave on its own. Firing his gun in such an enclosed space should be an absolute last resort—it will likely deafen him, deafen Tyler who is sleeping in the cell, attract the attention of every last Gasman above ground. So instead he puts the safety on and cracks the butt of the gun against the other creature’s gas mask. It shatters the plastic of the Gasman’s goggle-eyes and knocks its head back against the bars. Inside the cell, Tyler blinks awake, leans up on one elbow to watch them with wide, dark eyes.

The Gasman was unprepared for a betrayal. It goes down with weak resistance, and Josh wrenches its gun free of its strap to slide it away, kneeling upon its chest, neoprene crinkling, and presses the barrel of the rifle into the Gasman’s throat. It flails desperately, but Josh has too much leverage. It struggles for its life, but Josh is struggling for more than just that. He stares into the empty goggle eyes, spider-cracked, and pities it. Josh keeps up the pressure as long as he dares, even after the Gasman stops struggling.

Josh sits back, fingers aching, chest heaving. He stares at Tyler through the bars of his cell. Sometime during the struggle, Tyler has sat up. He’s wearing flannel pajamas, feet bare, toes curling against the cold concrete floor. Josh has seen the other man every day for weeks, months, but Tyler hasn’t seen him. No part of him is nervous though—this is Tyler. He reaches up and pulls off the gas mask.

“Hey,” says Josh.

Tyler makes a long, warm noise in the back of his throat. He gives up on talking.

“Do you remember me?” Josh asks. He can’t help himself.

Tyler grins, his teeth a white slash in the dim cell. He starts to laugh, reaching up a fist to press against his teeth, and the answer is obvious: yes, yes, yes.

#

Josh unlocks the cell. “Let’s get out of here, yeah?”

“No,” says Tyler. He tries to stand but his legs are weak and he slips off of the hard mattress onto the floor, tailbone jarring painfully against the concrete floor. Josh crosses the cell in two long steps, tugging off his gloves, to offer his hands to Tyler. The other man’s hands are cold, but Josh doesn’t mind: he presses them between his own to warm them. “I want to—to—”

“Slowly,” says Josh. He sits on the bed beside Tyler, their hands clutched together. “What is it?”

“I want to—do that thing—with—that—words—”

“Talk?”

“Yes.”

“What about?”

Tyler doesn’t try to explain. Maybe even if he is able to, he doesn’t have the words.

“We will have time,” says Josh. “All the time in the world, as soon as we get out of here.”

Tyler snorts. “There is no—no way out.”

“I’ve got help. Listen, Blurry is dead, but not for long. We need to get onto the roof. Can you walk?”

“No,” says Tyler. “Yes—but, not—”

“That’s okay. That’s not your fault. I know where your chair is. Give me one second, okay?” When Josh goes to pull away, Tyler clutches his hands tighter, like he’s liable to disappear at any moment. “Hey,” Josh says softly. “It’s okay. I’ll be right back. It’s right outside the cell.”

Tyler lets go, and judging by the look on his face, he feels the loss of contact just as keenly as Josh does—and god, is this what they’d been missing all those years apart? This warmth, this comfort? Is this the sort of happiness, that fluttering feeling like a bird trapped in his chest, that they’ve both been robbed of by Blurryface? No more, Josh promises himself. Not a minute more.

He leaves the cell, squinting against the lights in the basement. Tyler’s chair is right outside the cell door. Josh has his hands on it when the door to the basement opens. Everything in him stills for a long moment: his thoughts, his heart, the blood in his veins, the bird in his chest. There are steps on the stairs. Josh’s gas mask in still inside the cell—there is no disguising himself. The boots on the stairs become visible—it’s a Gasman, the one meant to take over the dead one’s shift. And maybe it would be better if it were Blurryface, because at least there’s some sick part of Blurryface that wants Josh and Tyler alive, but these brainless creatures are bombs poised for detonation. Josh is their lit match.

Josh doesn’t hesitate: the moment the Gasman’s head is in sight, he shoots it. The recoil hurts; the sound is worse. There is nowhere for it to go in the concrete enclosed basement. His ears flare in pain, a sharp burst inside his skull, and he even though he sees the Gasman fall down the last few steps, he doesn’t hear it at all. His ears ring so that he can’t hear his own footsteps as he crosses the room and disarms the creature. It’s dead, but dead doesn’t mean much around here.

Tyler is crumpled on the floor, palms pressed to his ears. His teeth are clenched in pain, legs tucked awkwardly underneath him. When Josh grabs him under the arms and helps him into the wheelchair, Tyler swoons. His face goes white, head tipping back against the headrest, eyes fluttering. He comes to almost immediately, giving Josh a wane smile, but Josh is frightened. He’s more frightened than when he had to fight the Gasmen, more frightened than sitting across from Blurry, waiting for the rain to stop so that Ashley could take her shot. What’s wrong with Tyler isn’t a problem that can be solved with bullets. It isn’t a problem that Josh can solve at all.

But there won’t be any problems to solve if they don’t get moving.

They take the elevator to the third floor. When the doors open, it’s a Gasman in full regalia that emerges, pushing the wheelchair of a frail man in flannel pajamas. On Tyler’s head is a gas mask and across his chest is a gun. The mask might not do much to muffle the sound of any shots fired, but it’s better than nothing. Josh is hopeful that they won’t have to fire another shot. Tyler makes him hopeful. The elevator can’t be trusted to rise above the third floor, so from here to the roof, they’ll have to use the stairs.

“I’ll help you,” says Josh. They clutch hands like they’re drowning. Josh pulls one of Tyler’s arms over his shoulders and carries most of the smaller man’s weight. On the landing between the third and fourth floor, Tyler swoons again. This time he collapses completely. Josh lowers his sagging weight to the floor, ripping the mask off of his face to see the pale skin, the fluttering eyes, the blood dripping from Tyler’s nose. There isn’t time. Josh puts down both of their guns and masks, sheds his bulky hazmat suit, and picks Tyler up to carry him.

It’s up two more flights of stairs and then the rooftop door is in sight. He pushes his weight against it, breathing heavily. Tyler is light, but dead weight is heavy. Outside, it is raining again, so similar to the day when Josh first crawled from the ocean and up the side of the prison, only the heat means that he can feel his limbs ache and shake with exertion. The cool rain against Tyler’s face starts to rouse him. Josh nearly collapses down to the rooftop, jarring the man in his arms, lowering him down the rest of the way as gently as he can.

“Josh,” Tyler says groggily. The rain smears the blood down his chin. Tyler licks his lips.

Then the flare goes off. It is nothing but a distant boom, a red star falling in reverse, climbing up the gray sky and then exploding. It’s coming from the little shack in the sea. It’s the signal for Plan B, Plan Nobody Makes It Out Alive, Plan Ashley Is In Trouble, Plan Boom.

“No,” Josh says. “No.”

He clutches his hair, pulls and pulls and pulls. In his heart, he knows: Ashley would never set off their last flair unless…unless she is gone or going. Dead or dying.

Josh wants to fall apart. He wants to cry, to scream, to swim across the ocean, to fight for her, to heal her in so many ways. All these years that they’ve been planning, and while there’d always been the possibility that they would die, it wasn’t one that Josh thought would come to fruition. Ten years, six months, and it was over. Josh’s feelings feel like poisons he’s swallowed, a deadly cocktail seeping the strength from him.

“I failed,” Josh says, shouting over the rain and the ringing in his ears. Maybe he’s crying; his eyes burn. He can’t tell. “Ashley isn’t coming for us now. No one is coming for us.”

Tyler closes his eyes to the rain. His hair is black when wet, growing back nicely from when it was shaved for his surgery, laying in damp waves plastered against his forehead. His teeth are chattering with the cold from the rain, even though it’s warm out. His pajamas stick to his skin which clings to his bones. Tyler nods. “That’s—yes. I know.”

Josh scoops him up one last time. He has the strength to stumble back through the rooftop door and shut out the wind and the rain behind them. In the stairway, the rain seems a million miles away. It’s so quiet that he can hear the drips of droplets falling from his hair. So carefully, Josh removes the cellphone from his pocket. He takes it out of the plastic bag and shows it to Tyler. “With this, I could end it all. All of it. If you tell me to.”

“What?” asks Tyler. He’s so pale, shivering. Josh pulls him closer until they’re almost nose to nose. “How?”

So Josh tells him everything, about the years spent on the shack in the sea, about Ashley firing shots into the ocean, about both of them reading books on bombs and guns by trembling candlelight. He talks about the dreams he had of Tyler, painful dreams where he saw through Tyler’s eyes. He explains the trip across the ocean, the climb into the building, the last months he’s spent as a Gasman: all of the factors that had to come together for this escape to be made, for Josh to act as secretly as possible. He tells him about the phone.

“Why?” asks Tyler. They are pressed side to side, soaking wet but no longer shivering.

“Why what?”

“Why—” Tyler waves a thin hand. “—all this? Why did you try to—to—”

“She sent me for you,” Josh says.

“Who?”

Josh shakes his head. “I can’t remember her name. I can’t even remember her face. But she found me and helped me remember who I was, and I couldn’t remember who I was without remembering you. Tyler—I wasted so much time.”

“Time?”

“Too much time. Before I met you. When I met you but lived without you. It was all wasted.”

“Josh,” says Tyler. “I need to—to—say something.”

“Take your time.”

“You. I—you make me feel—that feeling. The one where there are—birds inside of you.” Tyler puts a hand over his heart, fluttering his fingers gently. His lashes are wet with tears and he shakes with his hitching breaths. “That’s how I feel. About you.”

“Can I kiss you?” Josh asks.

Tyler nods because he can’t speak.

It isn’t like the movies—because it’s _real_. It’s better than the movies—because it’s real. Tyler’s lips are dry. Both of them are unpracticed and tentative and, still, it seems like too much: Tyler’s hand coming up to rest on the back of his neck, thumb lost in the wet curls at the nape of Josh’s neck, both of their breath mingling together.

Behind them, the door to the roof opens. Blurryface stands there, soaking wet. Nearly thirty minutes have passed since Ashley took her fatal second shot, and sometime during those minutes, he has stitched himself back together. Blurry appraises them emptily, cowering together on the stairwell, clothes soaked to their skin, hands clutched together. Tyler turns his head away and lets his forehead drop onto Josh’s shoulder, but Josh doesn’t look away. He presses a hand against the back of Tyler’s neck to bring him closer, and he doesn’t look away.

Blurry outstretches his hand and clenches it into a tight fist. With it comes the sound of cracking glass, and Tyler pitches forward, melting into Josh. His face has gone white, blood pouring from his nose.

“Tyler?” Josh whispers.

“Don’t speak,” Blurry says gently. He pulls something from his pocket and drops it onto the stairwell where it clatters towards him. It’s Ashley’s cell phone, smashed to pieces. “I plucked the bullet out of my skull and traced it all the way to your little seaside shithole. It’s burning, now, but don’t worry. I killed Ashley before I set it on fire. She’s gone, and she won’t be back here. And you? You will be worse than gone. It will be like you never existed.”

Josh picks up his phone, opens it.

“Calling for backup?” Blurryface asks. “Who is left? You have no one.”

“No more backup,” says Josh. His finger caresses the call button. “I never told you what I learned while waiting. It took me so many months here, assembling them, tucking them away in every vent, every corner. There’s one in your origami closet. There’s one under Tyler’s bed. They’re everywhere—and all I need to do is press this button. I just need to set off one, and we’ll be blown sky high.”

“Bombs,” says Blurry.

“Bingo,” says Josh.

Blurry frowns. “If you do that—you’ll hurt the Treehouse.”

Josh squints. “What?” he asks. “What treehouse?”

“The Treehouse,” Blurry says, slowly. “Do you really not remember?”

“Remember a treehouse? What treehouse?” The word strikes something familiar in him, but nothing else comes: no memory, no inkling of why it would feel so familiar. Blurry’s hands have slowly drifted up and out, carefully, as if to show he’s no threat, as if Josh were the bomb. “Don’t come closer!”

“Listen to me—”

“No.”

“—this is a dream. Blowing me up won’t do anything to me. You’ve shot me. You’ve burned me. I will always come back. But the Treehouse can’t just rebuild itself. This floor that we are on—if it were to be destroyed—it could bring the whole place down on top of us. I’m not ready for that. You’re not ready for that. It could destroy Tyler. So just…put the phone down.”

“No, no no. I know you. I know not to let you talk. I know not to listen to you.”

Josh presses the call button.

“NO—"

There is no heat, no pain. Just the briefest moment between dialing and the first ring, a moment when Josh reaches out for Tyler’s limp form and pulls him close, tucking his head under his chin, closing his eyes and waiting for it all to be over.

But instead of being over, he just wakes up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dream over. Next chap will take place in the real world...it's been so long, I've forgotten what it's like...
> 
> Find me on twitter @ spooky_sad  
> Tumblr at sosaditsspooky
> 
> And my NSFW fics on here under HappyGetLucky. 
> 
> I'm sorry this took so long.


	33. Insomnia

It’s called exploding head syndrome.

Tyler almost did a report about in his sophomore year of high school. The broad topic of his research paper was sleep disorders. He’d been too busy—with basketball, with his growing popularity, with building his image like a child in a sandbox, like God with clay—that he had barely put any effort into the paper. A Google search had brought up a smorgasbord of disorders, and one of them had been called Exploding Head Syndrome.

A harmless disorder in which a person imagines they hear a loud noise as they’re nearly asleep or just waking. It was interesting enough that he’d read the full sentence describing it, but the information on it was lacking; he’d needed something easy, something that would write itself so that he could focus on other more important things. The topic of his paper ended up being REM disorders, but he’d never forgotten about exploding head syndrome with its apt name.

It is like a gunshot goes off beside his ear.

An explosion.

His head bursts with phantom pain, just the memory of which aches. He rubs at his head and is startled to find that his hair is longer, that there is no raised, tender scar near the crown of his skull. His brain volleys back and forth between what was and what is, between the dream that had felt so, so real and back to reality. The weakness in his legs is gone, his thin fragility. His body is as it once was—as it truly is. Disoriented, he sits up in the dark feeling strangled by the blankets around him, unsure of where he is or if he is in danger, unsure why he feels consumed by heat.

Behind him, on the sofa bed, Zack sleeps on. Oblivious.

Beside his pillow, his cellphone goes off. The screen is a flare in the darkness of the basement, an SOS signal, a buoy in the endless ocean. There are a half dozen other messages from Josh, messages that Tyler had ignored all day. He opens them now and looks at the most recent message.

**Josh (3:45 AM)**

**Call me now**

Added hastily: **please**.

“Josh,” Tyler whispers. There are phantom cobwebs in his throat, coating the cogs of his brain. He dusts them away, whispers the name five, ten, fifteen times under his breath in the time it takes to creep out of the nest of blankets on the floor and into the basement bathroom, arm laden with his discarded clothes, cringing at the deafening click of the door behind him. When he presses the call button, the phone doesn’t even finish the first ring.

“Tyler?” Josh whispers.

“I’m here,” he says.

“We need to—”

“I know. I’m getting dressed now,” Tyler says, cradling the phone between his shoulder and his ear while one hand gropes blindly for his pants in the darkness. “I’ll text you when I’m almost at your house.”

“Oh god,” says Josh, sound wrecked. “What have we _done_? What did I _do_?”

“I’ll be there soon,” Tyler promises. He pauses. “Everything is okay. It’s all going to be fine.”

He isn’t sure if he’s lying.

#

Outside, there is the first hint at fall in the air. Goosebumps blossom along Tyler’s bare arms but he rolls down the driver’s side window anyway. There is air—air that doesn’t smell like the sea. It makes him feel giddy, his muscles shivering, tensing. He wishes that he had awoken Zack on his way out, wishes that he had left something more than the vague scribbled note HAD TO LEAVE, I AM OKAY, WILL BE BACK SOON, PROMISE.

When Tyler pulls into Josh’s driveway, he is already waiting, sitting on the low front step of his porch. He is the picture of hopelessness, folded over with his elbows planted on his knees and his hands tangled in his dark, curling hair. When he looks up at the sound of Tyler’s car, he is illuminated by the headlights—and Tyler knows. Right then, he knows. The dream wasn’t real, but it was _so_ real. His feelings for Josh are _real_.

Josh lurches up off of the porch and ambles towards Tyler’s car. Tyler looks down at his hands on the steering wheel, the chapped, white knuckles, the nails bitten lower than low. They look like a stranger’s hands, but he’d rather look at them than at Josh—Josh who he feels like he knows too well, better than he should. He knows the way Josh’s curls feel when they’ve grown long, knows the way they feel against tangled between his fingers. He knows the way Josh cries, the way Josh carries the world on his shoulders like Atlas.

He knows the way Josh looks when he’s resigned to die.

He knows the way Josh _tastes_.

Tyler feels nauseous. The passenger door opens, light flooding the cab of the car. He can’t even look at Josh as he slips into the car, legs long in his skinny jeans, shivering in his hoodie. The door closes but the light lingers.

In the edge of his vision, he sees Josh wipe his palms against his eyes. “Can we go somewhere?” Josh asks, voice thick. “I don’t care where. Just. Anywhere.”

The light goes off, and in the darkness, Tyler can breathe. “Yeah,” he says. He puts the car in reverse.

#

They go to Denny’s.

“Where’s the hearse?” The waitress asks at their expressions.

“We’re in it,” says Tyler. He nudges the menu back towards her. They order French toast, eggs, sausage, and coffee. The lights overhead are too bright, and in the back of his skull Tyler feels a headache forming, throbbing in time with his sluggish heartbeat. He wants to look everywhere but Josh. He wants to look no where but at Josh.

They scald their tongues on coffee sweetened with cream and sugar, and somehow, they talk.

“I don’t know how to feel about it,” says Tyler, staring at the drawstrings on Josh’s hoodie so that he doesn’t have to see the tortured look on his face. “It was just a dream, but it felt so real. I don’t know if the things that I went through count as—as valid experiences. I was tortured for ten years, but does it count? Was it real?”

“I don’t think there is anything about these dreams that count as ‘just dreams’,” Josh says. “This thing between us...this link between us and our dreams? I think it’s real. As real as it gets.”

And that’s the silken thread that leads back to his web of fears. This thing—link, as Josh called it—defies Tyler’s beliefs in what is possible. It’s supernatural, it’s science-fiction. It makes him feel like he’s walking on sand, treading in water that he can’t see the bottom of. No one could understand this. If Tyler told this to anyone, they would think he was crazy.

The only reassurance that he isn’t crazy is sitting across from him, and Tyler can barely look him in the eye.

“I don’t know how to deal with that,” Tyler says, choked. “I don’t know how to come back from this. How to heal from something that didn’t really happen.”

“Do you feel—broken?”

Tyler gathers his guts in his hands and looks at Josh’s tortured expression, the raw red eyes, his greasy, wild hair. His mouth is full and stoic. He doesn’t flinch away from Tyler’s overt gaze, looks like a man staring down the barrel of a gun. Despite his youthful appearance, he can see the way the years will pile upon Josh, the way that he could so easily become the man in the stairwell, clutching his doom in his hand as a cellphone. It was just a dream, but he’s so afraid that it could be a reality.

Tyler holds up his thumb and forefinger, a hairsbreadth between them, shaking. “I feel _this_ _close_.”

“This is all my fault,” says Josh.

“How?”

“I don’t know. But I’m pretty sure.”

“Are you okay?” It’s a dumb question. Tyler doesn’t even want to ask it, but he knows that he has to, knows that he’s obligated to. “There are things that Blurryface said to me about you and him. Gross things.”

“Gross?” Josh asks. “What do you mean?”

“Sexual things.”

Josh puts his elbows on the table, nearly knocking over his untouched glass of water. He presses his palms against his eyes and digs the tips of his fingers into his forehead. “I’d forgotten.”

“Did he hurt you?” Tyler dreads knowing the answer. Tyler must know the answer.

“Spooky,” he says. “But not the way you mean. I don’t think. It’s hard to remember. I can tell you the things that happened but it’s like—it’s like someone _else_ told _me_. Like it’s a story I’ve read. I don’t feel like it really happened to me. He wanted me to be close to him, he wanted me to love him. In the end, I think I did, in a way. Does that make sense?”

“Yes,” Tyler lies.

Josh uncovers his face. It’s all red now, and his eyes are wet. The waitress arrives with plates heaped full of steaming breakfast food, containers of warm syrup. It all sits between them, but neither of them gives any inclination that they notice it.

“I’m so embarrassed,” says Josh when the woman is gone. His jaw trembles.

“It wasn’t your fault,” and Tyler is so relieved that as he says it, he believes it. He remembers Spooky as the Judge, looking like he’d accept a kick from Blurryface as if it was a tender kiss. “Whatever happened…whether it was just holding hands or—it shouldn’t have taken any coercion. Love and affection don’t require convincing.”

“Yeah. Yeah I know that.” But Josh doesn’t look like he knew it.

“Do you still love him?”

“ _Him_?” Josh asks, and there is just enough inflection in that word to make Tyler’s heart skip a beat. “No.”

Tyler reaches for his ice water, mouth dry. It doesn’t help. His gaze bounces back and forth between the drawstrings on Josh’s hoodie, but suddenly that’s too close—too close to the mouth that Tyler has kissed so tragically, so tenderly. The memory of it socks him low in the gut, threatens to take his breath away. “Josh,” Tyler says, licking his lips. “I really like you.”

“But?” Josh asks.

“But? No but. Dude, I _like_ you.”

“Okay, _but_?”

“But—”

“There it is.”

“—I don’t want to have sex with you, and I don’t think that will ever change. I don’t want you to wait around hoping that it will. I want to be accepted for who I am now. For the things I like now, for the things I _don’t_. Does that make sense?”

“Yes,” Josh says. Underneath the table, their feet brush. They cross ankles. “I want you to know that I have these— _feelings_ for you. I’m pretty sure that I’ve felt this way since I first saw you. Since I first saw your art posted up in the hallway at school. Since that basketball game when that school from Pennsylvania trashed you guys—do you remember? You shook every single one of their hands anyway, even the assistant coach, even that kid who just refilled the cooler with Gatorade. You care about everyone. I care about _you_. And caring about you means that I respect you. Now. As you are.”

How can someone like Josh exist? Someone so painfully open, so completely honest, so unafraid and unashamed? Tyler feels awed, like Josh has performed a magic trick, like he’s pulled Tyler’s heart from a hat under the table, like he’s magicked it into his throat where a lump has made itself a home. He plants his elbow on the table and presses his palm over his mouth to hide his smile, to smother any laughter, hysterical, happy, hopeful. His head aches, throbs even as he ignores it. “But would that be enough for you?”

“How couldn’t it be?” Josh wonders. “How couldn’t you be? It’s obvious how I feel. But how do _you_ feel? I didn’t think you felt this way about anyone.”

“I never have before,” Tyler admits. He wants to reach out across the table, around the cooling French toast and sausage, to take one of Josh’s hands, to feel the texture of his palms and feel the grooves on his fingertips. Instead, he presses their ankles closer underneath the table.

“But you do? Feel this way.”

“Yeah,” says Tyler. “Yeah, I do.”

He holds the rest of it in, hiding the flood of fear behind his teeth. That he’s scared. That he doesn’t know what this means for him, for his labels, for the way he identifies. He had just began to accept himself, to build a foundation that he felt solid enough to grow on top of, to thrive from. Now things feel turned upside down. He doesn’t know whether to take himself seriously. He’s afraid of being invalidated.

“I need time, though,” Tyler says as gently as he can. He glances down and catches the gaudy glimpse of purple lines, healed haphazardly up and down his arms. There’s a rush of shame, like always. He wishes that he’d worn long sleeves. He wonders if the waitress saw the marks and he feels embarrassed. “I’m going through things. Yesterday I almost relapsed. I’m going to talk to my mom about going back to therapy, because I’m starting to feel how I felt during the spring. I need help or I’ll end up in the hospital again. Or maybe worse.

“As much as I like you, I don’t know if now is the best time to focus on someone else. My parents—they don’t even know about me, my orientation. Or whatever. I don’t know if I’m ready to come out to them, and I don’t want to hide you. I’d never want to hide you. Whatever this is between us, maybe we should—”

“Wait,” says Josh.

“Yeah,” Tyler breathes.

“Okay,” Josh says, like it’s as simple as that. “Then we will wait. And in the meantime—I’ll just be here for you.”

“There’s no pressure to wait,” Tyler fumbles. “If you stop feeling the same way, there won’t be any hard feelings. You know? I’ll understand.”

“Don’t worry about that,” says Josh. He traps Tyler’s ankle between both of his own, tugging. Tyler’s shoe is half-tied and comes right off. He bangs his knee on the underside of the table trying to escape Josh’s hold, socked foot kicking at the other boy’s shins. The waitress at the counter looks up from the novel she’s reading—Jodi Picoult—and watches them warily as they smother their laughter, shy as children with their affection.

After replacing his shoe, Tyler picks up his fork and stabs at his French toast, drowning in syrup. His stomach rolls, but he doesn’t want to get kicked out of the restaurant for just sitting around. “We need to figure out what to do about the Treehouse.”

All the lightheartedness seeps from Josh. He slumps his shoulders, face drawn. In an instant, he looks a decade older. “You’re right. I don’t know though. I don’t know what any of it even means, much less what to do to make it stop.”

“It’s obvious how to make it stop,” Tyler says. He forces one square of toast into his mouth and swallows it down, struggling not to gag. “We go to the Top.”

Josh shakes his head. He keeps his voice low, glancing at the waitress to make sure she isn’t listening in. “What does it matter? Blurryface can’t die. We’ve burned him. We’ve shot him. He won’t stay dead.”

“There’s something up there that frightens him,” says Tyler. “Some _body_ , maybe. I think the only chance we have at stopping him is up there.”

“Maybe it’s your heart,” Josh adds, dismally. He picks up his fork and holds it the wrong way, running the pad of his thumb over the prongs. “That’s what he wants.”

Tyler frowns. “He took it already, though. With Spooky. He took _both_ of our hearts.”

Josh shrugs. “There was only half of it there, remember? Maybe he’s looking for the other half, too. It’s what he told me in his office at the prison. He said that he wants to take control of you, to control the Treehouse, but he needs your heart.”

“Well he’s not going to have it,” Tyler swears. “We’re going to get there first.”

“If there’s any of the Treehouse left. We don’t know if it’s even standing anymore. Blurryface said that it would be damaged. He said that—” Josh stops, clamping his teeth down on whatever words were about to trip out of his mouth.

“What is it?” Tyler asks. He rubs at an eye, behind which his headache seems to center.

“He said that hurting it would destroy you.”

“It can’t destroy me,” says Tyler. “It’s only a dream.”

“What if it isn’t?”

“What do you think is going to happen to me?” Tyler asks. “Do you think I’m going to blow up? Spontaneously combust?”

“I don’t know,” says Josh, a little more biting. The prongs of the fork are digging into his thumb. “Maybe you’ll just deteriorate really slowly. Maybe you’ll feel like _relapsing_? Maybe you’ll hurt yourself. _Or worse_.”

“Don’t say that.” Tyler’s lips feel numb, goosebumps on his bare arms. He disbelieves the idea even as it sinks in his stomach like a heavy stone.

“ _You_ said that. Those are _your_ words. Whatever we are going to do about this? We need to do it. Fast. Like, tonight, fast.”

Unconsciously, Tyler’s hand reaches out and taps at the screen of his phone on the table. It lights up with the time: 1:12 in the morning. Urgency comes over him, making the blood pound in his aching temples, more potent than the coffee that tastes sour on his tongue. And what is that, that smell? Smoke?

It must be all in his head. It must be.

“What can we do? I have school in six hours, and I don’t think I could fall asleep if I tried.” Just the thought of falling asleep makes his stomach turn. His last dream is still too fresh: the helpless fury, the hopeless monotony. His fingernails ache with the memory of scratching tallies on the wall, days lost. There is no part of him that wants to go back to sleep, but Tyler’s heard before that you can’t always get what you want.

“We’ll fall asleep. Don’t worry,” Josh assures. He looks down at the barely touched food, growing cold. “Should we get this stuff to go? We should, shouldn’t we? Or not? Not. We don’t have time. Right.”

Tyler catches the waitress’s eye with a trembling hand. “Check?”

#

Creeping into Josh’s house while everyone is asleep makes Tyler feel like he’s breaking in. Josh’s mom is sleeping at the hospital with Ashley, but his father and youngest two siblings are in their respective rooms, unassuming to Tyler and Josh’s activities. He’s only seen Josh’s house once, and it looks completely foreign in the dark. He stands shivering in the entryway, barely wanting to breathe while Josh slips through the house silently.

On the wall by the front door are picture frames, barely visible in the dark: dim forms of a happy family lumped together in front of the camera. Pictures don’t tell the whole story, Tyler thinks. Not the half of it.

Josh reappears out of the darkness so smoothly that Tyler flinches. They sneak down the stairs into the basement together. It is cold down here, but at least they can turn the lights on. A drum set sits in the corner. There is a sofa, which Josh immediately begins de-cushioning, unfolding it into a full sized bed. He strips off his hoodie, and when his shirt sticks to it for an instant revealing his pale hipbones and a soft mostly-flat stomach, Tyler lets himself appreciate the sight. Josh is so, so beautiful.

A pill bottle rattles in Josh’s hand. He tosses it to Tyler who barely catches it. The side reads KLONOPIN, and it’s for Joshua W. Dun. What does the W stand for, Tyler wonders? William probably. Wilbert? He hopes not.

“They put me straight to sleep when I just take one. “

“Maybe we should take two?”

“And chew them. That should help, you know, get them in our systems faster.”

They dole out the pills like M&Ms and stare at the tiny blue circles. Sharing a glance, they both toss them back. They take more force to chew than Tyler had expected, and the taste is awful, bitter and medicinal. He nearly gags, nerves twisting in his stomach, residual taste of syrup in the back of his mouth—

\--and smoke in his nose.

He forces himself to swallow. Tyler sits heavily on the edge of the pull-out, springs creaking. Josh piles blankets on the bed and two castaway pillows, lumpy, but clean. They smell like laundry detergent when Tyler shoves his face into one, absently considering smothering himself. When he pulls his face from the pillow, it is dark. For a moment he thinks that he has slipped so seamlessly into a dream that he can’t even remember laying down. Then Josh is there in the darkness, the springs squeaking at the far end of the mattress as he lays down. Heart in his throat, Tyler slowly joins him. The blanket Josh draws over them is a warm rasp in the dark.

“Is this okay?” Josh whispers. “I can sleep on the floor.”

Tyler rolls his eyes, only Josh can’t see that. They’ve done this before, a few weeks ago, only now it is so much different. “It’s fine. I’m asexual, not _five_.”

He lets his hand creep out—his fingers brush Josh’s, which were reaching for his too. Josh’s hand is clammy, but their fingers slot together nicely.

“I hope Mary is okay,” Josh says. It’s so dark that even when he turns his head, he can’t see the other boy’s form. There are no windows in the basement to let in ambient light, and it is as dark with his eyes open as it is with them closed.

“Mary,” Tyler repeats. It sounds familiar. “Who’s Mary?”

“Your defense attorney. From the trial, you remember? She’s the woman I met in the hospital when Blurry was holding Ashley captive. After you went to prison, she came to find me. I was so messed up. Spooky, Josh. I didn’t know who I was, but she helped me remember.”

“I’m glad there’s someone out there on our side,” Tyler whispers. His head throbs, body is exhausted. Still, his eyes stay wide open, staring at a ceiling he can’t see. “Blurryface is too powerful to fight alone.”

Josh squeezes his hand. “Good thing we aren’t alone.”

No one can see him, but Tyler smiles anyway.

#

Tyler has never experienced the foggy daze of antidepressants. When his brain snapped like a bungee cord pulled too tightly last spring, therapy was the treatment that began his long process of recovery. The affect is obvious, as is the appeal: he feels like a thick, damp sheet is tugged over his head. His heart stutters in his chest, but he doesn’t mind. His tongue lays lazy against his teeth, too thick to move. In his head, his thoughts buzz like bees, but the beating of their wings doesn’t make it through the thick hive of his skull.

Mostly, he is very tired.

Still, he doesn’t manage to sleep.

For hours, they talk, whispering into the darkness because it’s easier than whispering to each other. Josh talks about his life before Columbus: girlfriends he had, a boyfriend too. Tyler listens raptly, every bit of knowledge about Josh precious enough to treasure. They should be tucked away somewhere safe in his mind where they can’t ever be lost—but his mind feels a little like a sieve right now; thoughts flow in and out and he’s helpless to stop them.

Their conversation is punctuated by Tyler tapping at the screen of his phone. Those brief instances of blinding light are beautiful and terrible. Beautiful because he gets a split glimpse of Josh, shirtless, hair mussed, eyes squinting against the light as they both look at the clock. Terrible because the clock keeps moving and moving and they are still not sleeping.

It is just past five in the morning when they realize that their chance to sleep has passed, going-going-gone like a window slipping shut so slowly that you don’t notice until it’s impossible to squeeze out of.

“I’ve got to go home,” Tyler says. The dazed fog has passed, but it feels like there’s a film over his eyes that he can’t blink away. He thinks of Zack sleeping in the basement with an empty nest of blankets where Tyler should be. If his brother wakes up without him there, the flimsy note he left won’t help. Not at all. “I have—school.”

“Ashley is coming home today,” says Josh. He sits on the side of the bed, elbows planted on his knees, digging his fingers into his wild hair. He lets loose a long, slow curse. “I’m so tired. I think I’m going to die, I’m so tired.”

“You can’t fall asleep without me,” Tyler warns. He fumbles in the dark where he knows the light switch to be, turns it on by accident. Being blinded doesn’t help him feel more awake. If anything, it amplifies the ache behind his eyes. “We aren’t going in there alone, so we’re going to have to wait. I’ll come by after school. Okay? I’ll come over. Okay Josh? _Josh_.”

Josh jerks, half asleep where he sits hunched over. His eyes squint against the light painfully. “I’ll stay awake. I promise.”

Tyler fucking hopes so, because the only thing scarier than going into those dreams—into his own head—alone, is _Josh_ being there alone.

They tiptoe up the stairs. Josh leaves him at the door. Tyler almost kisses him but doesn’t. They are awake, after all.

Outside, it is even colder. He shivers behind the wheel, leaves his car door cracked until he’s further down the street so that the sound of it closing doesn’t wake the Duns. It’s early, but Columbus is already waking up. Tyler feels as wired as he does exhausted, keeps clutching the wheel so tightly that his hands ache when he pulls them away. Once he almost drifts into someone else’s lane. He pinches the inside of his arm, just over a purple scar barely visible in the dim morning light. It helps him get home.

Tyler undresses and lays down on the floor of the basement. On the couch above him, Zack is flat on his back, snoring. In the trash can in the bathroom is a note, shredded. Tyler hopes Zack doesn’t go to throw something away and notice it there.

Beside him, his phone buzzes.

**Josh (5:58 AM)**

**Let me no when u make it home ok**

Tyler types back, **Already home.**

His alarm clock goes off, vibrating enough that he can feel it in his teeth. He almost laughs as he shuts it off, but he is too tired. Zack stirs on the couch.

He gets up and starts his day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DON'T misuse your prescriptions.   
> DO find me on twitter at: Spooky_Sad.
> 
> I'm not abandoning this story. We're so close to the top. Is there anybody out there still?
> 
> Endless thank you to adsnoggin, Aslysha A., Sam P., Brea W., Sam W., Aubrey S., and Kenzie G. You all are getting a preview of what I have finished of the next chapter. Go check You Know Where. ;)


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